Questions people ask
What is a prenup?
The short answer
A prenup, or prenuptial agreement, is a written contract two people sign before marrying that sets out how property, debts and finances will be treated if the marriage ends. Whether a specific agreement holds up is a question for a family-law attorney.
The longer answer
The typical prenup has two parts. The body sets the rules: who keeps what, who owes what, and what happens to each if the marriage ends. Attached to it are schedules listing what each person owned and owed on the day they signed, often down to account numbers, property addresses and values. The schedules are what give the rules something to act on.
An agreement can address property brought into the marriage, how debts are divided, and how income earned during the marriage is treated. Some also address what happens on death, which ties them to estate planning. A postnuptial agreement is the same kind of contract, signed after the wedding instead of before it. What a particular agreement may lawfully cover, and what a court will enforce, is where a family-law attorney earns the fee.
The document tends to matter at a moment nobody planned for, often long after the signing. When it does, counsel asks for the original with every schedule and signature page still attached. That request often comes from an attorney who has never met either of you and has only the paper to go on. If you are holding one now, what to do with an agreement you have already signed is the practical next page.
We don't draft, review or interpret agreements. Our part is narrower. The original sits in one known place, reachable by the person who needs it.
The schedules are the part that goes missing
A prenup is usually signed as one bound set. Then it gets copied for each lawyer, scanned for the couple, emailed to an accountant and pulled apart for a refinance. Each copy is made for a sensible reason; each is also a chance for a page to drop out. The schedules drift away from the body, a page of account numbers ends up in a different folder, and the copy everyone can find is missing Exhibit B.
A list of assets without the agreement means little. In many agreements the schedules are the disclosure, a record of what each person put on the table at signing, and nothing written later can recreate them honestly. An agreement without them can leave two people arguing about what was actually shown, and disclosure is one of the grounds on which an agreement written without counsel may be challenged.
Before storing one, count the pages against its list of exhibits and check that both signatures are on the set you keep. A photocopy of a signature page is not the page. If something is missing, the attorney who drafted it may still hold a complete set, and it is easier to ask while that office still has the file.