[londgine]

I have a question regarding a prenup. Maybe people here have good ideas. I know someone (she) who inherited a house in a hcol area. When getting married they made a prenup so that she would keep ownership of the house. They also had separate accounts but lived together and spit the bills, an otherwise happy marriage. Then came a time, after both of them earned some money that they wanted to renovate the house. That caused some issues, because if the house is completely her's, should he chip in for renovations? Together they have enough money for renovations, but she herself doesn't. They will obviously both benefit from the renovations, and he is willing to chip in. But I don't know what would be a good solution. Obviously this is someone else, so I won't get too involved, but I'm going to get married soon, and things like this make a prenup look like it doesn't solve problems, rather replaces problems with other problems.

[ketralnis]

Prenups can say (almost) whatever you want, so the short answer is to cover maintenance expenses in the same document that gives you a stake in the property in the first place even if that stake is just a residence one. Of course that's much more obvious in hindsight but there's also postnups which can amend the prenup.

If I were pitching in to renovate a property I'd want equity in it. You can do that with or without the inheritance or the prenup: figure out the value of the property before and after the renovations and assign that percentage to the person that covered them.

That's what I'd do in a non-romantic housemate situation but of course a marriage is way more complicated and there are lots of pieces that aren't purely legal or equity in nature. A prenup isn't going to absolve you of that.

[wakamoleguy]

IANAL, but if the prenup doesn’t already cover this, then they could always draw up a new contract amending it.