One of the key opportunities that a marriage contract provides to future newlyweds or spouses is the opportunity to change the regime of joint marital property enshrined in the Family Code to the regime of separate or, in other words, personal property. Separate property can be established not only for the period of marriage, but also used when dividing the property of spouses during a divorce.

Marriage agreements that provide for the regime of separate marital property have some legal differences from other marital contracts, so knowing how marriage agreements on separate property are drawn up will help you write and execute the agreement correctly.

Subject of the agreement, rights, obligations and responsibilities of the parties

The subject of a marital separation agreement includes:

1. 
   Determining the list of assets owned by each spouse. The list can be specified either in the contract itself or written in a separate annex to it.

2. A description of the conditions under which things acquired in a marital relationship become the personal property of one of the parties to the contract. For example, registering an apartment in the name of a wife gives her the right to a 100% share of this apartment, or, for example, payment of the price of a computer by a husband from personal funds is the basis for transferring the purchased computer into his personal property
3. Identification of the specific powers and responsibilities that the non-owner spouse has with respect to the personal property of the other spouse. For example, this may be the right to unhindered use, the obligation to repair a thing if it is damaged, the obligation to give consent to the alienation of property worth more than 1 million rubles.
4. The conditions under which marital assets are divided. Most often, spouses in marriage contracts that establish an individual property regime are left after a divorce with the property that they received during the marriage relationship.
5. The limits of a spouse's liability for the debts of another marriage partner.

The rights and obligations of spouses under a marital separation agreement are described in the table below.

In the event that a party to a marriage contract does not fulfill the obligations assigned to it, it may be held liable for its actions. Responsibility is as follows:

1. 
   Compensation for damages. This type of liability applies priority to the monetary obligations of spouses. For example, the husband does not bear the costs of maintaining his asset, so the wife has to maintain it, who is not legally obligated to do so. In this regard, the wife can demand that her husband voluntarily or through the court reimburse all expenses incurred by her in full.

2. Suppression of actions that violate the rights of the parties to the contract. Sanctions are applied to the guilty spouse by law enforcement agencies (police, prosecutor's office) or the court. An example of a violation that should be stopped is the illegal retention of an item (car, computer) belonging to the other spouse.
3. Termination of a marriage agreement by mutual agreement or in court. A sanction may be applied if the other party significantly violates any terms of the contract.
4. Recognition of the invalidity of the marriage contract. Recognition of invalidity occurs through a magistrate or district court when the contract was drawn up in violation of the law, or was not certified by a notary, or was signed using violence and deception, or one of the parties is incompetent, or when one party agreed to enslaving conditions and put itself in unfavorable situation.

How to draw up a prenuptial agreement on separate property in 2020 - a current sample

Since a marriage contract is a contract, there are two parties as its participants, as in most civil contracts. At the same time, the only condition established for this type of contract by the legislator is the following:

All relations that are regulated by the agreement are formed solely on the condition of marriage between its parties! It is also interesting that the parties can enter into an agreement either while they are already married or in advance (for example, at the engagement stage). But, in the latter case, the document will acquire legal force only at the moment of official registration of the marriage between the parties.

So, as a typical marriage contract/agreement, according to the current legislation of the Russian Federation, it should contain the following information:

1. important information about the parties to the contract, including the status of the couple (married or not yet);
2. details of the parties;
3. conditions and information about the responsibilities of the parties;
4. the procedure for terminating the contract or the possibility of changing it;
5. and, in fact, information about the object of the marriage contract (property, as well as its regime regulated by the contract).

As you can see, with a proper understanding of the area of ​​law under discussion, drawing up an agreement is not difficult! After this, the couple will only have to contact any notary office and receive the appropriate services of a specialist who will not only certify the contract, but also check for basic errors, which may subsequently become grounds for termination of the contract.

Sample prenuptial agreement before marriage

Of course, the popularity of a prenuptial agreement in 2021 is not only due to the ease of drawing up an agreement. Many young people are increasingly entering into such a contract before the official registration of marriage, wanting to issue guarantees of their future well-being as early as possible, so that they can then completely devote themselves to wedding concerns.

Moreover, based on the text of Article 10 of the Family Code of the Russian Federation, such an agreement will automatically come into force after the marriage is registered between its parties.

Sample prenuptial agreement after marriage in 2020

In addition, a husband and wife who did not enter into a marriage contract before marriage reserve the legal right to formalize this agreement at any time, having discussed which property will become the property of one of them in full or will belong to them by right of shared ownership (the couple can establish any share size for each spouse).

Current sample of a marriage contract on separate property

Since during the premarital period, future spouses actively acquire many different things to ensure family comfort, sometimes it is quite difficult to prove who exactly owns certain property benefits.

Therefore, the most optimal way when drawing up a prenuptial agreement during a marriage for such property, lawyers believe, is to include in the agreement a clause stating that the owner of the property is the one in whose name it was registered.

Another way is to draw up additional agreements, which, in itself, will entail new costs for notary services. After all, each of these agreements requires mandatory registration with this specialist.

Registration of a marriage contract for property acquired by spouses during marriage

According to the rule established by the legislator, all property acquired by spouses after registration of marriage (except for the exceptions listed in the RF IC) belongs to them in equal shares. However, quite often it happens that a husband and wife need to divide such property. This is not difficult to do when the spouses come to a “common denominator”, independently determining which of them will become the owner of such property.

At the same time, the contract can establish not only a list of valuable things with a new regime established for them, but also a clause indicating that the legal owner of the thing is the one to whom it was registered.

Sample marriage contract for shared ownership

So, we have already mentioned above that the parties to a marriage contract have the right to allocate their own shares in the property in the contract. In this case, during divorce and division of property, conflicts between spouses almost never arise, because the other party can always receive compensation for their own share.

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At the same time, shares can be allocated in almost all types of property benefits - it does not matter whether it is movable or immovable property!

The procedure for dividing property during divorce proceedings under an agreement

If the marriage agreement contains clauses devoted to the division of property, then the division must be carried out in accordance with the terms of the agreement.

Sometimes legal situations arise when spouses establish a separate property regime under a contract for the period of marriage, but do not prescribe the conditions for the division of assets during a divorce. In this case, the division of property is carried out according to the norms of the Family Code, i.e. All assets purchased after marriage are determined and divided equally between the marriage partners.

Responsibility of spouses

By putting his signature, the representative of the couple agrees with the contents of the transaction. This does not mean that you can “hang” all your debts on another marriage partner, or divide them unfairly.

When preparing the paper, the principle of fair division should be applied.

If, after a break in the relationship, one of the parties did not comply with the terms of the agreement and caused material and moral damage, then it may be held legally liable, namely:

• compensation for damage;
• payment of penalties;
• payment of interest for the use of other people's property, etc.

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These penalties are provided for in Art. 393 – 397 Civil Code of the Russian Federation. The person who signs the contract is obliged to fulfill its terms, otherwise there will be lawsuits and unpleasant showdowns with the ex-spouse.

Arbitrage practice

Due to the fact that the debt on loans among citizens has been growing over the past few years, and the number of bankruptcies in Russia has been increasing, spouses often use a marriage contract with a separate property regime as a way to shelter the property of the debtor spouse from the collection of creditors by transferring most of the assets to another spouse. partner. Creditors, in turn, began to more often turn to the courts with demands to invalidate such marriage contracts. However, they are not always able to achieve their goal, as in the case described below, which was considered by the Gorodetsky City Court of the Nizhny Novgorod Region in November 2021.

The creditor's demand was that the court invalidate the co-defendants' marriage agreement. Under the terms of this agreement, the spouses established a separate property regime, and all the husband's assets purchased by him during the marriage became the property of his wife. In this regard, the husband’s property became insufficient to fully repay the debt.

The marriage contract, according to the creditor, is imaginary, and the defendants abused their rights and are hiding property from collection.

The debtor's wife told the court that she had nothing to do with her husband's debt, since it arose in connection with his entrepreneurial activity. As soon as she found out about this, she demanded to divide the property acquired during the marital relationship, which was done through the signing of a marriage contract. The spouses also signed an agreement on the division of debts.

As a result of reviewing the case materials, the judge found:

1. The creditor's statement that the agreement is imaginary does not correspond to the truth, since as a result of the execution of the agreement, the parties acquired new obligations and rights, distributed property among themselves and registered the acquired assets with government authorities.
2. The co-defendants do not abuse their rights and do not hide the property from foreclosure, since the disputed land and the house located on it are pledged and do not formally belong to the co-defendants. In this regard, the spouses did not pursue any illegal goals, because the transfer of land and house to the wife did not lead to a decrease in the husband’s property mass, which is subject to recovery.

Thus, the creditor’s claim was not satisfied, and the actions of the co-defendants were recognized as legal.