How to sign a prenup when marrying a foreign lady? My girlfriend lives in China. She is a Chinese citizen. I'm an American. We want to get married My concern: I have kids so I want to protect them. So naturally i want to sign a prenup. If she was here in America, that would be a piece of cake. But how do I sign it there. Or is there any way to bring her here and then get married?
Applicable Law A marital agreement can be entered into both before marriage (a prenup) and after marriage (a postnup). And, it will have the same legal effect in either case once entered into by the parties. In practice, marital agreements are usually proposed by a more affluent spouse and are reviewed by a less affluent spouse who will be giving up many of the legal economic rights usually associated with being married because the alternative is to not get married at all and the less affluent spouse thinks that marriage is still worth it even with fewer economic rights. The governing principle of marital agreements is that they must be entered into with the highest level of voluntariness, good faith, and full disclosure. Typically, a prenup with (1) limit the rights of the less affluent spouse in a property division upon divorce, (2) limit the less affluent spouse's inheritance rights, (3) limit the less affluent spouse's right to maintenance (a.k.a. alimony) upon divorce or legal separation, and (4) limit the less affluent spouse's rights to attorneys' fees in the event of a divorce. Often, these limitations are phased in superficially more equal terms, but the agreement only has a practical affect limiting a spouse's legal economic rights in marriage on the less affluent spouse, when it is recognized that one spouse is starting out affluent and the other spouse is starting out less affluent. The question states that: "I have kids so I want to protect them." So, determining precisely what you want to protect your kids from and how, in a manner that your spouse, courts evaluating the agreement in the future, and immigration officials, would consider to be legitimate, would be critical. You should know what impact a death or divorce would have during a short lived marriage for someone in your shoes because you start trying to change the rules, because you might be surprised to learn that the status quo is less unfair than you believe it to be. For example, in many states, property owned by one party before the marriage was commenced is not subject to division as marital property upon divorce and often the right to alimony following a short marriage that does not produce children is quite modest. Also, if you are extremely worried about the possibility that your new marriage could fail and that this would force you to make economic sacrifices that you do not think would be acceptable under the status quo in the absence of a prenup, you might want to think twice about whether getting marriage in the way that you are planning to get marriage is really a good idea. Excessive worries about a break up that is damaging to you may be your subconscious's way of telling you that you have grave concerns about this marriage that could be deal breaking, as well as your outward positive hopes and dreams that may be unrealistic. You had a relationship or marriage that failed once. You may be ready for a more successful relationship now, but you need to be comfortable that the circumstances that caused your previous marriage to fail are unlikely to recur. No prenup will ever make a divorce easy or painless, although it can bring some predictability to the process, if a prenup is well drafted and reasonable. Typically, to prepare a valid marital agreement: it must be in writing; it will contain no invalid terms (e.g., in most cases, terms relating to child support or parental responsibilities, or terms that make marital fault relevant to the economic rights of the parties); both parties will have reviewed a complete disclosure of the other party's financial circumstances; each party will have had an opportunity to consult with a lawyer familiar this these agreements (at the other party's expense if the person agreeing to it can not afford a lawyer of their own); each party will review the terms of the agreement in a language that they can understand, and the circumstances under which the agreement is signed will not be under duress broadly defined (for example, to include presentation of the agreement on the eve of the wedding day without adequate time to consider its terms without undue negative consequences if the spouse does not agree). Typically, the lawyer for each party would sign the agreement to confirm that all formal requirements and counsel regarding the agreement has taken place. A marital agreement that doesn't meet the applicable legal standards (which vary state to state). I have cited the law in Colorado which requires parties to follow what would only be considered "best practices" in many other states, although there would be plenty of states where these legal standards would apply. A marital agreement is still not valid if it is unconscionable to a spouse at the time it is to be enforced, for example, leaving one spouse unable to meet her basic needs and the other spouse wealthy after a long marriage. There is no requirement that a prenup be signed in any particular country or place, so long as the person signing it understands that their signature is intended to be binding. There is no requirement that a prenup be signed by both spouses at the same time, as long as both spouses sign it before it is to become effective. Realistically, as of 2017 in an average cost of living U.S. area, you are probably looking a legal expenses and related expenses involved in making a prenup happen given the need for Chinese speaking legal professionals and logistical issues, at an expense of $7,500 to $15,000 or more to get a prenup done under this circumstances. You would need to decide if this expense was worth the benefit to you. Options It could be signed by your spouse while your spouse to be is in China, if the proper formalities are observed. In terms of the enforceability of the agreement, and the likelihood that it will be executed, this is probably the best option. But, as a practical matter this may be difficult to accomplish this because lawyers knowledgeable about U.S. law who can communicate in the spouse's topolect of Chinese may be hard to find, and Chinese attitudes towards prenups may be different from those of people in the U.S. Negotiating a prenup in the face of a quite new relationship that often doesn't have a lot of depth at the start and is based upon mutual hope and a belief that the couple has shared interests as much as an actual long term relationship prior to getting engaged (which is common in marriages of the kind described in this question) can present a difficult challenge for the couple as they develop a marriage relationship very early on in their process when they don't have a lot of communication and relationship foundation to build upon. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule. Suppose that you've known your girlfriend continuously since she was 14 years old and she is now 24 (you are 25) and both of you are fluently bilingual, because you grew up next to an embassy and she was the daughter of an embassy official and you went to prom together, and then the two of you went to college and graduate school together living together for five of those years. Suppose that she is from a wealthy family and needs the pre-nup to protect her family's wealth, and you are not very affluent despite being the U.S. spouse. Suppose that she's was a paralegal in a family law firm that draws up prenups when she was in college before moving back to China when she finished her studies, while you are a divorce lawyer, and that the two of you have talked about marital agreements for years. This might not be much of a relationship issue and might not pose the kinds of immigration questions raised below. But, if you fell into one of the exceptions to the general rule, you wouldn't be asking this question in the first place in all likelihood. It is possible to obtain a financee visa which allows a foreign spouse to immigrate to the United States with an intent to marry upon arrival. But, in that situation there would be real doubt about whether a marital agreement signed upon arrival would be truly voluntary because failing to agree to the prenup and not getting marriage as a result would result in the financee's immediate deportation and terminate a wedding that the wife had already moved half way across the world and given up everything to participate in. It is possible to execute a post-nup, but in that case, if it was truly voluntary, the wife probably wouldn't sign it because it would mean that she would be giving up rights that she had already acquired as a result of the marriage for nothing in return, and if it was involuntary, then it wouldn't be valid. (There are circumstances when a post-nup can make sense for a spouse to voluntarily enter into after marriage, for example, to make rich relatives comfortable including a person in their Will or making a large gift to one of the spouses that is intended to stay in the family but will benefit the spouse during the marriage and the couple's children, but the facts in the question don't naturally suggest any of those circumstances.) Immigration Concerns Unlike an ordinary marriage, which is presumed to be valid and in good faith, marriages which afford a spouse the right to immigrate to the U.S. and in due course, to become a U.S. citizen if certain other requirements are met, are carefully scrutinized for signs that it is a "sham marriage" and immigration judges can be quite skeptical in determining whether or not a marriage is a sham. Couples go to great lengths to prove otherwise, and the burden is effectively placed upon them to show that they are not engaged in marriage fraud and instead actually married for love. If a marriage with an immigrant is found to be a sham, the immigrant's visa will be revoked, the immigrant's citizenship application will be denied, and the immigrant may become deportable. There may also be sanctions for the citizen or permanent resident spouse who sponsored the immigrant. One factor among many that can be considered when determining if a marriage is a sham marriage or not is the existence of a prenup or postnup, and even more importantly, its terms. The more unfavorable the terms of the prenup or postnup are to the immigrant spouse, the more likely it is that an immigration official will conclude that a marriage is a sham for immigration purposes. There isn't a hard and fast rule, but it is one factor that is considered among others in reaching that determination. The key factors in evaluating a prenup for immigration purposes are the terms of the agreement. The more the immigrant spouse's legal rights in the marriage are limited, the more likely immigration officials are to view the marriage as a sham and the couple as engaged in marriage fraud. On the other hand, if all a prenup does is to insure that a new spouse and children from a former relationship have equal inheritance rights and no rights upon divorce are modified at all, immigration officials may view the prenup as relatively innocuous. Conclusion There are a lot of good reasons not to get a prenup in the circumstances you identify if most of my hunches about the usual circumstances involved when someone asks a question of the kind that you have are true. Before taking this step, you would be wise to consult with a lawyer to see what the likely economic and legal consequences of a divorce or death in the absence of a prenup would likely be in your case, as I suspect that your fears may be exaggerated or may involve issues that a prenup can't address. It could be that once you are well informed it is still clear to you that a prenup is a good decision. But, given multiple indications that this may not be a good choice for you, I would strongly suggest thinking twice about this decision after conferring with a lawyer about your individualized circumstances before going forward with this plan.
There are two models for citizenship, by location of birth and by the nationality of the parent. The US chiefly follows the first model, which is why only your grandma's father is American, and your grandma is not. By the same logic, you are not. Countries like Spain are far more lenient, and do allow you to request Spanish citizenship if you can show any of your direct ancestors are Spanish. That's possible because each country can make its own laws within reason. The international norm is that everybody should get at least a citizenship at birth; statelessness should not happen.
Choice of Law The place where you get married is irrelevant to the question of whether or not you need a pre-nuptial agreement. What matters is where you intend to live once you get married. A pre-nuptial agreement exists to change the default rules of law upon death and divorce. These rules differ from state to state, so the default rules you might modify depend upon where you intend to live after you get married, and so does the extent to which you need to modify those rules. Generally, a divorce will be governed by the law of the place where the couple resides when the divorce is commenced, and generally inheritance is governed by the laws of the place where the decedent (i.e. the dead person) was domiciled (which means something close to, but not the same as where the decedent resided) at death. Why Get A Pre-Nuptial Agreement? If you and your bride are happy with the default rules of law regarding divorce and inheritance in the place that you intend to live, there is no need for a pre-nuptial agreement. If the two of you are not content with the default rules of law regarding divorce and inheritance in the place that you intend to live, then a pre-nuptial agreement can change some, but not all, of those rules. Generally, a pre-nuptial agreement can change rules regarding property division, alimony and attorneys' fees, but not matters related to children or related to the grounds upon which you can get divorced or related to whether fault can be considered in a property division or alimony determination. What the pre-nuptial agreement would say would depend upon your objectives for entering into it. To answer your question it is necessary to know &quot;what harm are you afraid of that a pre-nuptial agreement could prevent?&quot; This has more to do with your expectations and values than it does with the law. Some reasons that people enter into pre-nuptial agreements include: preventing a spouse from inheriting or receiving in a divorce wealth that you inherited or might inherit in the future, because the donors might decide not to leave you inheritances otherwise; preserving wealth acquired by the spouse's respectively during life for one's adult children in a late in life marriage (e.g. during retirement) that is unlikely to produce more children. The Formalities Any pre-nuptial agreement should be drafted with both spouses represented by lawyers, and any competent lawyer should know the details of executing the document that are necessary to make it valid. If the agreement is drafted in English, which would make sense if she was moving to the U.S. to join you, she would need to have an interpreter in addition to a lawyer to help her evaluate and negotiate it, unless she was already fully fluent in English enough to understand advanced legal concepts (which would be very uncommon unless, for example, she went to school for many years in the U.S.). Immigration Considerations In the immigration process, U.S. immigration officials are skeptical that international marriages are legitimate and have the power to determine that an international marriage was a sham. One factor among many that immigration officials use to determine that a marriage was a sham entered into for immigration purposes is the existence of a pre-nuptial agreement that favors the citizen spouse. The more strongly the agreement favors the citizen spouse relative to the default rules of law, the more likely it is that immigration officials will determine that the marriage is a sham. It is not necessarily a factor that will cause the marriage to be found to be a sham, in and of itself, but it is an important factor that would be considered. If you enter into a pre-nuptial agreement, you are making it harder for your bride to become a U.S. citizen, and the more it favors you, the harder it will be for her to become a U.S. citizen.
It is legal. 18 USC Chapter 17 contains laws regarding what you can/cannot do with US legal tender. It doesn't mention anything about buying, or selling US tender at or above the face value. And there are several businesses in the USA that do this (coin exchanges which purchase coins at less then face value and give you dollar bills in return, etc...). However I would be concerned that your action might look like money laundering to the customs official on your way back home. Or on the way going to the foreign country for that matter. Which could be very bad for you. I would talk to a lawyer about this.
The common law is permissive That is to say that, in a common law jurisdiction, the law is about what you must not do rather than about what you must do. Now, particular statutes may be phrased as requiring certain actions but, if you read them the “common law way” to coin a phrase, they are really imposing sanctions for doing the prohibited thing that falls outside those parameters. Since there is no legal prohibition on using multiple names (simultaneously or sequentially) you are free to do so. Now, there are common law prohibitions of, for example, fraud or tax evasion. So, if you use different names for the purpose of doing those prohibited things, then that is illegal but it is the specific criminality that is sanctioned, not the use of the alias in perpetrating it. The UK has a law that makes it a crime to not register the birth of a child. It also imposes some (and by most country’s standards, very few) restrictions on the name a child can be registered under. But there is no legal obligation on the child or their parents to use the registered name in any particular circumstances. There may be difficulties (amounting to impossibility in some cases) in obtaining a passport, opening a bank account, or claiming social security under a non-registered name but that is due to the necessity to identify the individual for which the name serves as a proxy. However, outside the requirements of specific statutes or administrative procedures, the common law position is that your name is what people call you and you identify as your name. The second part is important - I have been called dickhead on many occasions but I do not consider it to be my name. The UK has a patronymic tradition for surnames so, usually, on marriage, the female adopts the surname of the male and that, through the marriage certificate, becomes her registered name. However, it is extremely common for women to continue to use their original (and now not registered) name in their professional life and her new name in her private life. This can be problematic. My wife, has on server all occasions been refused permission to board a plane because the ticket (booked by others) was in her maiden name - a name for which she has no official identification. However, that’s a procedural problem - she didn’t do anything illegal.
There is no requirement in California to file a prenuptial agreement before obtaining a license. There is a requirement for disclosure of property and finances, 7 days minimum to review the agreement and being represented by a lawyer or waiving representation, specifically: The party against whom enforcement is sought was represented by independent legal counsel at the time of signing the agreement or, after being advised to seek independent legal counsel, expressly waived, in a separate writing, representation by independent legal counsel. The advisement to seek independent legal counsel shall be made at least seven calendar days before the final agreement is signed. It is possible for a couple to write their own agreement without hiring separate lawyers, but the law is written so as to presume that if not advised by independent counsel, the agreement is unenforceable. The presumption can be overcome by carefully following the requirements of §1615, for example, the party against whom the agreement is to be enforced was fully informed of the terms and basic effect of the agreement as well as the rights and obligations the party was giving up by signing the agreement, and was proficient in the language in which the explanation of the party’s rights was conducted and in which the agreement was written. The explanation of the rights and obligations relinquished shall be memorialized in writing and delivered to the party prior to signing the agreement. The unrepresented party shall, on or before the signing of the premarital agreement, execute a document declaring that the party received the information required by this paragraph and indicating who provided that information.
Get a lawyer. That employer is skating on very, very thin ice. You can’t have a non-compete agreement in Germany at all without the employer paying reasonable compensation. What is reasonable is decided by courts, but half your last regular salary is not “reasonable”. Especially if this would endanger your status of being allowed to work in Germany. If you were a non-German EU citizen, any non-compete agreement would be immediately invalid because it violates the right of free movement; how nonEU citizens are affected, I don’t know. The rest of the agreement seems quite illegal to me. I would think that any good employment lawyer would love to take your case.
As user6726 notes in an answer, the page you link to derives from 26 USC 7701. However, it does not reproduce the text accurately. There, "United States person" is defined at section 7701(a)(30), and it notably lacks anything corresponding to "any other person that is not a foreign person." It's possible that that language is motivated by some court decision, but it's also possible that someone just added it for the sake of symmetry with the definition of "foreign person" without thinking about the logical paradox that it might create. Looking at section 7701, I don't see any explicit mention of US non-citizen nationals. It appears that such a person who does not live in one of the 50 states or the District of Columbia falls under the definition of nonresident alien at 7701(b)(1)(B) even though such a person is explicitly not an alien under the Immigration and Nationality Act. I do not see any regulations correcting this oversight, but I suppose that in practice such people are indeed treated as US citizens. I don't know enough about the classification of nonhuman legal persons as foreign or domestic to have any ideas about whether there are similar ambiguities there.