What A Prenup Can Cover
A prenup in New Jersey can protect any asset, including assets you pick up after the wedding. The usual ones are:
- A home and other real estate
- Investment and retirement accounts
- Trusts, and anything you are a beneficiary of
- A business, and everything the business owns
- Assets held in another country
- Stocks, bonds and other holdings
It can also settle other money questions in advance, so long as the term is not against public policy. Common ones are:
- How assets would be divided if the marriage ends
- Whether alimony is paid, how much, and for how long
- What particular assets are agreed to be worth
- How debt each of you brings in is treated
- A promise to make a will that carries out what the prenup says
- Which state's law the agreement is read under
What A Prenup Cannot Cover
There are limits, and they matter. A New Jersey court will not enforce a prenup term that:
- Decides custody or parenting time for a child
- Sets child support, or gives it up
- Leaves one spouse with no reasonable way to support themselves
- Rewards either of you for ending the marriage
- Breaks the law or goes against public policy
Anything to do with a child belongs to the court, not to the two of you. A child's right to support is the child's, and parents cannot sign it away in advance.
What Makes One Valid In New Jersey
Premarital agreements here are governed by the Uniform Premarital and Pre-Civil Union Agreement Act. Because a prenup usually gives up rights to alimony and to a share of marital property, a court looks closely at how it was signed.
The agreement itself has to:
- Be in writing and signed by both of you
- Include a statement of assets
- Fully disclose all earnings, property and debts on both sides
- Be signed before the marriage
And each of you has to:
- Have your own lawyer, or give that up in writing after being told you could have one
- Sign it freely, with nobody pushing you
- Have real time to read it and think about it before the wedding
That last one catches people. An agreement handed over a few days before the wedding, with the hall already paid for, is the kind a court will look at hardest. Start early.
Who Should Think About One
A prenup is worth considering in almost any marriage. It is worth a serious look if you:
- Own a business, or own part of one
- Expect an inheritance or a large gift
- Are the beneficiary of a trust
- Have been married before
- Have children from an earlier relationship
- Have a lot more in assets than the person you are marrying
- Earn a lot more than the person you are marrying
- Are marrying someone carrying heavy debt or student loans
- Expect your income to climb sharply during the marriage
- Want your finances kept private
Couples who put one in place usually end up arguing far less if the marriage does come apart, because the fight has already been settled on paper.
When A Prenup Gets Challenged
Having a prenup is not the end of it. Years later, one spouse may ask the court to throw it out. Most challenges say one of two things: that the signature was not really voluntary, or that the other side hid assets.
The spouse attacking the agreement carries the burden. They have to show a real defect, and the standard is a high one. But a prenup signed without full financial disclosure, without a written waiver of that disclosure, and without independent legal advice is the kind that gets set aside.
This is why the drafting matters so much. An agreement put together properly, with both sides advised and everything on the table, is the one that still stands when it is needed.
If You Are Already Married
A prenup has to be signed before the wedding. Once you are married, that door is closed.
What is still open is a postnuptial agreement. It does much the same job, just after the fact. It can deal with how assets and debts are treated, whether alimony is paid, and how particular property is divided if the marriage ends.
Postnups are useful when the money picture has changed since the wedding, or when a prenup simply never got done.