The marital settlement agreement: what it covers and why it is attorney-prepared
The settlement agreement is the contract that divides your property and debts and settles spousal support. It is attached to the judgment and enforced as a court order. It is the document that matters most, and the one a template serves worst.
What it covers
The date of separation. The division of community property, item by item, and the confirmation of each spouse's separate property. Who pays each debt and holds the other harmless. Spousal support: waived by both forever, reserved for the court to decide later, or agreed at an amount and for a period. A former name restored. Taxes. What happens to an asset one of you forgot to list. How the agreement becomes part of the judgment. Where a home is awarded to one spouse, the deed that transfers title.
Why the attorney drafts it from your terms
You and your spouse agree the terms; the attorney puts them into an agreement that a court will enter and that will hold up later. A waiver of spousal support must say what the law requires it to say, and say more where the marriage lasted ten years or more. A debt assigned to one spouse needs a hold-harmless clause. An unequal division must be knowing. A template does not know your facts; the attorney reads them.
The agreement uses your names throughout, never the court's role labels. Every figure in it is one you entered; nothing is estimated. One revision round is included in the flat fee of $1,499.
Signing it
Both of you sign in ink before a notary of your own choosing, and the notary's certificate of acknowledgment is attached to each signature. The office does not provide a notary. Law Offices of Rozsa Gyene represents the spouse who engages it only; the other spouse may take the agreement to an attorney of their own choosing before signing, and the agreement says so.
Rozsa Gyene, State Bar of California No. 208356, 3500 W. Olive Ave., Suite 300, Burbank, CA 91505.