Cultivating meaningful professional relationships is important to me. The better my network of attorneys, finance and insurance professionals is the better I am able to counsel my clients and spot and mitigate risk. Lydia Hsu is a family law attorney in San Jose. Her firm is Foster Hsu. She sent me the information below.

I just learned that a rule I did not know was retroactive is, indeed, retroactive.

Just as an invalid prenup can cause chaos on divorce, it can also cause chaos with the death of a spouse. A prenuptial agreement can, among other things, define “Separate Property” vs. “Community Property”. Staying married won’t solve the problem if you wish to leave your separate property to anyone other than your spouse.

New Rule as Of January 1, 2020

Change in the Family Code regarding Premarital Agreements. As of January 1, 2020, the law was revised as follows:

1. For any agreement entered into between January 1, 2002 and January 1, 2020, there must have been no less than seven calendar days between the time the final agreement was presented to an individual and advised to seek independent legal counsel and the time the agreement was signed.
2. This applies to any substantive revisions that changes the terms of the agreement.

If the final agreement in your matter was not presented to both sides and their counsel at least seven days before the date your agreement was signed, this change in law does affect your case and your agreement could be unenforceable by the Court. In order to prevent your agreement from being unenforceable in the event of a divorce, we advise that you discuss with your spouse adding an Addendum to your Premarital Agreement that specifically references this change in law and the desire of each of you that your Premarital Agreement remains enforceable, despite the change in law. Please reach out to Lydia if you’d like to discuss the change and she would be happy to set up a time to speak with you.