You signed a prenup years ago
The agreement you signed, and cannot now find
It was signed in a lawyer's office before the wedding, and neither of you has looked at it since. That is the normal case, not the careless one.
A prenuptial agreement can sit untouched for thirty years and then decide a great deal in a single afternoon. In between, the firm that drafted it may have merged, closed, retired the partner who handled it, or purged its closed files. No firm owes you custody of your original forever.
The copy at home is worse than people think. It shares the fate of the house — fire, storm, flood, a move, a renovation. And during a separation, both spouses live in that house. Paper that matters to only one of you should not sit where either of you can reach it.
What matters
- Find out whether the original exists and who physically holds it, before you need it.
- An original carries weight a photocopy does not, and schedules and exhibits have to still be attached.
- A box rented in one name, or in the name of a trust, removes the question of who has access.
- Tell someone where it is. A document nobody can find protects nobody.
How we handle it
- Bring what you have, including a partial copy — it tells us what to look for.
- We inventory what goes in and you keep a signed copy of that list.
- Access is by appointment, identified against photo ID, and logged.
Where we stop
We cannot tell you whether your agreement is enforceable, and we will not guess. That is a question for a family-law attorney in the state where you signed.
Questions people ask about this
Or you may be
You are facing financial disclosure
Mandatory disclosure arrives as a list, with a deadline, at the worst possible moment. Most of the pain is not legal. It is filing.
Family law attorneys
You need a referral that will not become a problem in your file. That is a shorter list than it should be.
Before anyone has filed
There is usually a period where nothing has been filed and both people are thinking. It is the easiest time to do this and the one nobody uses.
When you are ready, we are here.
A short phone call is usually enough to know whether a box is the right answer. Sometimes it is not, and we will say so.