Cleveland Jewish News
The ins and outs of a prenuptial discussion
By Steve Mark | August 15, 2025 | Andrew Zashin consulted and quoted
Should one spouse or both own significant assets prior to a marriage, comes the oft-uncomfortable discussion, after the quick pause to clear one’s throat: “Honey, my lawyer tells me I need to get a prenuptual agreement.”
These sort of discussions are on the rise. A Harris poll from statistics in 2022 reported that more than 15% of married couples have a prenuptual agreement.
Attorneys Andrew Zashin of Zashin Law in Mayfield Heights and Roger Kleinman of Cavitch Familo & Durkin in downtown Cleveland explained the ins and outs of how marriage can sometimes affect pre-owned assets.
“We represent a large number of high-net-worth individuals,” Zashin said. “People who fall into this category are more likely to have prepared prenuptial agreements before they were married.
“There is no specific point, or net worth, when a person should get a prenup,” he said. “It does make sense when one party has a company that is a going concern and has been running for some time. A party with an interest in a family business is a good example. Another example is a situation where one party has a disproportionate amount of assets as compared to the other side.”
Kleinman said, “A prenup is fairly common these days for people who have substantial wealth or a business prior to marriage or for those who are likely to receive family wealth during a marriage. Prenuptial agreements are rare for people who marry at a relatively young age and have very little in accumulated assets.”
For those in stable marriages, but are simply wondering about the general laws for premarital assets or the splitting of relatively equal assets, here is some advice.
“In general, premarital assets are separate property not subject to marital claims,” Kleinman said. “The issue can get complicated if liquid assets such as bank accounts and investment accounts also receive deposits during the marriage. The commingling of marital assets with premarital assets can destroy the premarital claims unless there are records which clearly trace what happened to the premarital assets.”
Here’s something about the prenup that you might not have known.
“Interestingly, Ohio was among the last holdouts of those states that prohibited post-nuptial agreements,” Zashin said. “Post-nuptial agreements do exactly what the name suggests, divide assets pursuant to an agreement made after parties were married. Now, clients interested in allocating their assets by prior agreement after they were married can enforce post-nuptial agreements. These agreements, give people an incentive to try to work through their marital problems, to stay married, knowing that upon divorce, they will get what they previously negotiated.”
What is both parties have somewhat equal financial stakes in a marriage.
“When people enter into a marriage what each party owns is their ‘separate property,’” Zashin said. “Any interest that separate property generates is also separate. It does not matter how the spouse came to own the property. They could have worked for it. It could have been gifted to them. Moreover, as long as that separate property is not ‘mixed,’ (and how it gets mixed together is subject to a complex set of rules) it remains the separate property of the spouse who owns it.”
When a home is involved, Kleinman said, “The equity in a premarital home is also separate. But the paydown of a mortgage or capital improvements made during a marriage creates a marital claim also. This becomes more complicated when a premarital home is sold during the marriage and the proceeds reinvested in a new home.”
If a business is part of the financial mix, Kleinman offered this clarity:
“A premarital interest in a closely held business is separate, but the increase in value is marital if a spouse runs the business. The law will presume the growth in value is due to marital labor.”
Should couples with relatively even financial stakes in a marriage seek to divorce and divide their assets, Kleinman said there is a relative norm in Ohio.
“Long-standing Ohio law, in broad terms, provides for an equal division of marital assets (assets acquired during a marriage by way of labor), spousal support (a balancing of income between spouses for a period based on the length of the marriage) and child support (again based upon the relative income of the parties in an amount determined by the Ohio child support guidelines). If there are children, parenting rights are also defined by Ohio law.”
However, should a “business arrangement” lead to an issue over a prenup be armed with this information, Kleinman said, “There are times when a prenup can actually trigger a divorce either because the agreement has certain dates based on the length of the marriage that substantially increase financial obligations set forth in the agreement (formulas for property division or spousal support),” he pointed out, “or the terms are so onerous that the spouse in the weaker position does not see an economic future.”
The financial give-and-take in a marriage comes down to this, according to Zashin.
“During marriage, when either spouse earns money, that money is considered to be jointly earned, the 50/50 contribution of both spouses,” he said. “The contribution is considered joint and the 50/50 contribution of the parties, irrespective of who actually earned the money. It is subject to division on an equal and equitable basis just as all other property.”