Legal Question in Family Law in Virginia
Premarital Agreements
My fiance and I want to want a prenup agreement before we say ''I do''. We want to do this ourselves and avoid the price of paying for a lawyer. It's would be pretty simple...in the event of our divorce, neither of us would want alimony, my poperty is mine, and his property would be his, neither would be required to provide health insurance for the other, and all property aquired during the marriage would be sold, and the proceeds split 50/50. If any children are born of the marriage, we both agree to having joint custody, with the mother being awarded physical custody and the father having liberal/resonable visitation whenever that he wants. Father would pay child support in the amount required by state law. NOW does this premartial document have to be reviewed and entered by a laywer, or can we ourselves take it to the court for notary? We have the document that we paid for, and printed off online from this website. Please advise. Thank you.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Premarital Agreements
Sure, you can take your prenup document to a clerk of court to have it notarized---which would mean nothing in terms of its legality and whether it might be subject to challenge if either party ever actually attempted to put it to use.
Prenuptial agreements for the average couple are simply unnecessary. They are mainly designed when one or both to be spouses have very large assets prior to the marriage to which they wish to maintain sole title and ownership. They are not for settling the garden variety issues which you've referenced in your question and which are more appropriately addressed in a Property Settlement Agreement(PSA).
Since Virginia is not a community property state(but a title state)neither you nor your spouse should have any problem in maintaining sole title and ownership to any substantial property assets which either of you bring to the marriage-----as long as these assets are in no way commingled during the marriage and are maintained separate and apart with neither spouse in any way contributing to any respective increases in value which the other spouse's assets may acquire during the course of the marriage. There is no need to "park" these kinds of assets in a prenuptial agreement to ensure their continued sole ownership status as long as the kinds of precautions referenced above have been appropriately taken.
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