Seeing a family attorney may not be the first thing on your wedding planning list, but it should be there somewhere. You and your fiance can create an agreement that lays out provisions for almost anything connected to your finances. Furthermore, the act of making the decisions required to complete the agreement can be enlightening for you as a couple and gives you a chance to be on the same page financially. Read on to learn more about what you need to know to make your own agreement.

Keeping it legal

While this is a fairly new and unregulated legal document, there are a few things that are better addressed elsewhere. Keeping in mind that a prenuptial agreement is used only for financial matters, you should leave the following out of it and consider alternatives in their place.

1. Leave out where you and your spouse will reside after the marriage, the style of home you will buy, or whether or not a mother-in-law suite will ever be part of your home. You can, however, make plans for saving for the down payment for the home, address ownership issues if either one of you currently owns a home, and put in place a budget for dealing with month-to-month financial issues.

2. Leave out how many children you might have, their names, and where they will attend school. You can, however, make plans for paying for the child's education for private preschool and beyond.

3. Leave out making provisions for who will retain custody of the children should you divorce, but you can make plans agreeing to honor your financial obligation to children of another relationship and make a place for that in your budget. The issue of child support, custody, and visitation are considered the purview of the state you live in, and anything you decide and add to the agreement will be superseded by state law.

4. Leave out issues concerning who will be the breadwinner and who will be the stay-at-home spouse, but you can make plans for your retirement income by deciding how much goes into the retirement fund and who can benefit from it when the time comes.

5. Leave out what type of car you will buy, but you should make a list of all property owned by each party prior to marriage. In most cases, what you enter the marriage with is considered your own property and will never be considered marital property. Things can get confusing, however, when your assets become commingled. This means that an asset that was previously owned by one spouse becomes intertwined with the other. For example, if one spouse comes into the marriage with a certain amount of money in a checking account, that money should be noted in case the other spouse begins depositing their paychecks into that same account.

Speak to a family law attorney to find out how to create your own prenuptial agreement.

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