Prenuptial Agreements for Same-Sex Couples

In 2011, New York became the sixth (and largest) state to legalize gay marriage. While this paved the way for many couples to enter into a legal marriage – it also, unfortunately, opened the way for many same-sex divorces to occur. Knowing this, there has been an increase in the amount of same-sex couples looking into drafting a prenuptial agreement. Prior to the legalization of gay marriage, these couples were limited to drafting a cohabitation agreement; this, however, treated them virtually as strangers – and was extremely limited in scope.

Now, gay and lesbian couples are able to enter into an agreement that outlines what should occur should the relationship fail. Current predictions say that in the first three years of the law that over twenty thousand gay and lesbian marriages will occur. Pair this with the 8% divorce rate in the state and almost two thousand of these marriages are predicted to fail. To ensure that assets are protected, that any children involved in the marriage are protected and that alimony is determined in the case of a divorce, many couples are proactively seeking to draft documents that will outline any future issues.