Like other assets and income during marriage, parties to a marriage contract should discuss how pension contributions are treated during a marriage. In many divorce cases where there is no marriage contract, the parties` retirement assets are among the most important assets that must be divided during the divorce and often have a higher value than the equity of the marital residence. Sometimes, when a wealthy spouse enters into marriage, they try to use a prenup to hide assets instead of protecting them. This is done by creating a prenup with favorable conditions and requiring the other person to sign the agreement without fully disclosing all valuable assets. The law requires each party to fully disclose its true financial situation, including assets and liabilities. In this way, each party can make an informed decision as to whether to sign the marriage contract as it is written. Without full disclosure, prenups are unenforceable by the court. There is no room for inexperience or error when it comes to marriage contracts. The same goes for post-marital agreements. With more than six decades of combined legal experience, Stewart Law Group`s family law lawyers continue to offer their clients imaginative and respectful representation. Let our experience make a difference in your family`s future. A properly drafted prenuptial agreement should address each party`s ownership interests in current or future businesses. What happens if one spouse supports the affairs of the other spouse? Would it be enough to help with accounting or send a few letters to give the other spouse a fair interest in the business in case of a subsequent divorce? Arizona`s prenuptial agreements can also establish responsibilities during marriage.
Some agreements set out the family and financial obligations of each spouse, whether there will be children and how the children are to be raised. Arizona is a state of community ownership, which means that any property acquired by either party during marriage is the property of the community of parties, unless there is a legal exception. This point about common property is important because a marriage contract can define the rights and obligations of the spouses both during the marriage and in the event of divorce. The Arizona Uniform Premarital Agreement Act governs how these agreements are created and the requirements for legal applicability. ARS § 25-201. We do not recommend that people who will soon be married try to draft their own prenuptial agreement. Mistakes are made easily and the consequences can be devastating and permanent. Since one party could gain an unfair advantage over the other, there are strict requirements to ensure fairness. Talk to your family law lawyer.
Each party should be represented by a lawyer, with both lawyers involved in drafting the agreement. A prenuptial arrangement should take into account the potential imbalance of assets between the parties. Since there can also be an imbalance between emotional and intellectual power, each party should hire a lawyer to represent the interests of clients. This ensures fairness and full disclosure in the negotiation process. It also excludes the possibility for a party to legitimately claim that it has not understood what it has signed. Arizona is a community-owned state, which means that in the event of divorce, couples must divide all their property and assets equally. A marriage contract replaces state law and allows couples to declare their assets, liabilities and income separately from community property. Consider, for example, a couple who have two vehicles, a home in Phoenix, a vacation home in Sedona, and considerable savings scattered across brokerage accounts and IRA accounts. Under Arizona law, the distribution of these assets would require each person to receive half of the proceeds of the sale or for the other person to buy half of the proceeds to retain ownership. A prenup could describe that every person gets a house, every person gets a vehicle, and every person gets a portion of the savings. Nevertheless, the division does not have to be fair. The couple could decide that one person receives all the physical assets and the other all the financial assets.
For a prenuptial contract to be valid and enforceable in Arizona, the following conditions must be met at the time of conclusion: However, if the parties have a marriage contract in Arizona, the parties may prescribe what is to be considered community property and what can be considered their respective unique and separate property. Most of the challenges associated with prenuptial agreements relate to spousal support. This often happens because a couple accumulates more assets during their marriage, which does not distract the deal. An experienced divorce lawyer can draft a prenuptial agreement that can help couples avoid problems later on. Because of the way laws are written, it is sometimes difficult to understand every detail. You can get help with this by contacting a lawyer and reading a simple language version of the content. See the following table to learn more about the law that governs prenuptial agreements in Arizona. Similarly, all orders regarding parenting time, legal decision-making, and support for children under Arizona law are always editable, and parents cannot agree to have «non-modifiable» orders or agreements that govern these child-related matters. While it may be appropriate in some circumstances to allow parents to contractually agree on a parental agreement that is final once and for all so that neither parent can ever withdraw the case in court, these non-modifiable parental agreements are not enforced because of the risk to the child. As this example shows, it is crucial that the marriage contract is properly drafted by a lawyer in order to achieve the parties` goals and have the best chance of surviving a legal challenge. .
