Although residents of the Sonoma County may have heard of them, postnuptial agreements may not be as well-known to the public as are prenuptial agreements.
Just like prenuptial agreements, California law allows for postnuptial agreements.
In other words, spouses can make agreements with respect to the division of their property even after they are married, just as they would were they to have signed a prenuptial agreement.
There are certain rules and restrictions that may apply to postnuptial agreements. A resident of the Santa Rosa area will want to speak to an experienced family law attorney if he or she is interested in exploring a postnuptial agreement.
Postnuptial agreements offer couples a number of benefits
Sometimes, a postnuptial agreement can be a positive step in healing a marriage that would otherwise be heading for divorce. Alternatively, it may serve as a blueprint for how a couple that ultimately decides to split will divide up their property.
However, postnuptial agreements have a number of other benefits as well.
For example, established couples who have entered a subsequent marriage may realize that they should have entered a premarital agreement. This is particularly true if one or both of the spouses have children from a prior relationship and want to be sure that their wealth gets passed on to those children.
A postnuptial agreement can be a way of addressing the same issues that the couple wishes they would have addressed in a prenup.
In other cases, a person may even be required to enter a postnuptial agreement. For example, many small businesses expect that individual owners will have a postnuptial agreement in place if only to prevent the owner’s divorce or death from creating issues with business succession.