For residents of Mayfair entering into marriage, they may have a variety of complex and valuable assets to protect, such as estate properties, interests in family trusts, closely held stock in corporations, and investment accounts. Prenuptial agreements, or marriage contracts, are permitted under the Alberta Family Property Act, and when prepared correctly and independently, they may take precedence over the statutory rules governing the division of property. In the case of Mayfair, an extremely affluent residential area in Calgary, where homes are worth anywhere from $1 million to over $2 million, entering a marriage without a prenuptial agreement will put much of the pre-marital wealth at risk under Alberta’s laws.
A prenuptial agreement that will genuinely ensure its protection requires a focused discussion of the assets that mean something to the client, namely the specific properties, business interests, trust shares, and investments which are protected by virtue of the document’s existence. A generic agreement that mentions certain assets but fails to address the very specific legal issues raised by the treatment of those assets, including the issue of exempt property, how corporate holdings can be treated, and how trusts and their shares can be handled, amounts to a façade of protection. Keystone Legal prepares prenuptial agreements that focus on these legal issues for all our Mayfair clients.
Alberta requires independent legal advice from each party’s own lawyer, not the same lawyer, for a prenuptial agreement to be enforceable with respect to property division. Keystone Legal provides both prenuptial agreement drafting and independent legal advice certification to Mayfair clients, ensuring every agreement is enforceable, clearly drafted, and specifically tailored to the client’s actual asset profile and circumstances.
Mayfair prenuptial agreement clients engage Keystone Legal through a fully confidential virtual process. The firm’s virtual model and efficient ILA appointment availability, typically within one to two business days, accommodates even the tightest pre-wedding timelines without compromising the quality of the legal advice provided.
