6 Practical Things Anyone Can Put in a Prenup (Like, Um, Even Your Debt)

Prenups aren’t just for the rich and famous. In fact, they might be right for you and your partner, no matter your financial status.

Prenuptial agreements are legally binding contracts a couple signs before marriage that details what happens to your finances and assets in case the coupling ends in a divorce — and it has long been a dirty word. But, according to Business Insider and the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, millennials are requesting prenups more than ever before. 

Sandy K. Roxas, a family law litigator and mediator in Torrance, California, told Apartment Therapy that more people are interested in setting those legal boundaries because it helps “set the tone for the marriage.” Two of the most common reasons marriages end is due to communication problems and financial issues, so some people argue that getting a prenup can be a deterrent to divorce, by getting all the finance and hard communication out of the way. And it can help to be prepared: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 53 percent of longtime married couples say they experience some form of “marital disruption” — which refers to separation, divorce or death — after 20 years of marriage. 

“For many individuals who contact me, they actually have little to no money,” Roxas said. “They’re college students, graduate students, and they really don’t have much to their names. They don’t have significant assets or savings in their bank accounts.” Instead, her clients are often trying to enter their marriage on the same page about any income or assets they might accrue. ”When the couple gets married, they will not have misunderstandings as it relates to finances,” she noted.

If you do end up deciding to get a prenup — or a postnup, which is pretty much the same thing but you file the agreement after you’re already married — the question you have to answer is simple: How are we going to split our assets if we end up getting a divorce? There are the typical things everyone looks out for, like how much money you have in the bank, who will get custody of potential kids and what you’ll do with any house or apartment you own together. But there are also some assets you might not immediately think about.

There are pets in the majority of American households, and 80 percent of owners view their pets as family members, according to a survey by the American Veterinary Medical Association reported by TIME. But they can be up for debate during a divorce argument over assets, and it might be better to decide who keeps the pet before you get married — or before you even adopt one.

Roxas recommends including the custody decisions for your pets in your prenup. If you don’t, litigation around who gets to keep Fido can be costly.

“Pets are considered property—even though they’re more than property for many couples—and people will fight about their pets,” Roxas said. “Sometimes they spend tens of thousands of dollars fighting about their pets in a divorce or legal separation.”

Roxas says it isn’t always necessary to include furniture if you bought it yourself before you met. But, oftentimes, people will buy furniture together before they get married, which, she says, can cause some confusion with who owns that pricey Restoration Hardware couch.

“Many couples purchase assets together before marriage,” Roxas said. “It’s a good idea to include those items in a prenup so that there is no dispute about whether the item is separate or community property.” To streamline things, it can be beneficial to address those major purchases into your agreement, whether by stating who gets to keep which piece, or the cost for one person to buy out the other person’s share of the piece.

Usually, in a divorce, anything you own because the other person gifted it to you is your property, and that includes jewelry, according to family law firm Fullenweider Wilhite. But family heirlooms might be stickier, and the best way to ensure there’s no confusion around potentially expensive heirlooms and gifts is to include it all in a prenup. 

“Let’s say the husband’s family gifts jewelry to the wife as a wedding gift,” Roxas says. “If the marriage ends in a divorce or legal separation, does that jewelry get returned to the husband’s family? What if that jewelry is an heirloom or jewelry that’s been passed on in the husband’s family?”

Married couples share it all — the good things and the bad, the highs and the lows and, yes, the income and the debt. If you’re one of the 42.3 million Americans who have student loan debt or 120 million Americans who have credit card debt (or if you’re considering marrying someone who does) you may want to write into the agreement whose responsibility it is to clear that up in the event that the marriage ends in divorce. 

“In California, earnings acquired during the marriage are community property,” Roxas said. “If a spouse saves money into a separate bank account, the other spouse is still entitled to 50% of the savings at the time of divorce or legal separation. Likewise, this applies to debts. For example, if a spouse saves $50,000 and the other spouse accumulates $100,000 in debts during the marriage, the savings and debts will be divided equally at the time of divorce or legal separation. Each spouse will be awarded $25,000 in savings and $50,000 in debts.”

To Roxas’s mind, such a breakdown is “unfair.” You can work with a lawyer to clarify those details in your pre- or postnup agreement, especially if you or your spouse plan to return to graduate school at any point. 

Intellectual property — aka any ideas that are the product of your own mind, like business ideas, music, books, photography, art and more — can be a tough thing to give up if a marriage ends in a divorce. In many states, any asset acquired during a marriage is considered “marital property,” which means both parties have equal rights to the asset if they get divorced, Ronald L. Kossack, a family law attorney, wrote.

“Business interests or business concepts can be included in a prenup to ensure that assets acquired prior to the marriage, or even during the marriage, remains the sole and separate property of the spouse who acquired it,” Roxas said.

Roxas added that couples may want to consider how they plan to manage their social media accounts, and any revenue from them. For instance, if you make videos together that garner views and profit, you might want to consider including a provision in your prenup that would cover how the potential future profit of those videos should be split. 

Another bonus to addressing someone’s social media habits in your prenup? You can include a confidentiality clause that keeps some personal information private and off social media. While sweet couple selfies might seem like the pinnacle of a relationship, things might get dicier if you or your partner have a popular account — and a prenup can help you establish boundaries you are both comfortable with.