Legal Expert

Postnuptial Agreement

We’ve all heard plenty about prenuptial agreements, but we hear less about postnuptial agreements. Both are contracts that address financial issues between married parties, but prenuptial agreements are entered into prior to marriage, while postnuptial agreements are entered into after the couple is married. If you’re interested in learning more about postnuptial agreements, consult with an experienced Austin postnuptial agreement attorney from Philley Law today.

What Postnuptial Agreements Are Not

People have all kinds of ideas about what prenuptial – and, by association, postnuptial – agreements are all about, but many of these ideas aren’t well-founded. Postnuptial agreements are not an indictment of your marriage, they do not mean that you are more likely to obtain a divorce, and they are not a tool for cheating your spouse out of what is rightfully his or hers. Both of you should have separate legal representation to help ensure that your individual rights are well-protected.

What Postnuptial Agreements Are

Again, postnuptial agreements are legal contracts that succinctly address whatever financial concerns the involved parties wish to address, and there are a variety of reasons why a couple might be interested in entering into such an agreement. Consider the following:

• If a couple has a prenuptial agreement that is no longer as relevant as it once was, a postnuptial agreement allows them the opportunity to make modifications as they see fit.
  If one or both parties have children from a previous marriage, a postnuptial agreement can help ensure that these children’s rights to their inheritance are well preserved. In this way, a postnuptial agreement can augment your estate planning efforts. The State of Texas may distribute your estate in a manner that doesn’t even come close to comporting with your wishes if you haven’t taken the necessary steps to help ensure this doesn’t happen (and a postnuptial agreement can be one such step).
• A postnuptial agreement can allow one spouse to protect the other from his or her own separate outsized debt. Any debt that you acquire together as a married couple, however, typically can’t be addressed in this matter.
• A postnuptial agreement cannot strip one party of any legal rights, such as pension rights or inheritance rights.
• A postnuptial agreement cannot address the issue of conservatorship (also known as child custody) or child support. These are matters that are decided in the event of divorce and in a manner that comports with the children’s best interests at that time.