Step 1 — The consultation
We start with a paid consultation — ₱3,500, consistent with our published legal fees — held in the office or by video at an hour that works across both your time zones. It is not a sales call. We want to know where each of you is domiciled, where your assets sit, whether either of you has children or obligations from before, what the wedding date is, and how firm that date actually is. By the end of it you should know which property regime fits your situation, what a settlement can and cannot do for you, and what the work will cost. If a prenup is not the right instrument for you, we would rather say so at that meeting.
Step 2 — Asset disclosure from both sides
Each of you prepares a written inventory: real property and where it is titled, bank and investment accounts, pensions, shares and business interests, vehicles, receivables — and liabilities, which couples routinely leave out. Both partners disclose. A settlement built on one side's list is a settlement with a hole in it, and the hole is discovered years later. What belongs in the inventory, and why foreign-situs assets need particular care, is covered on our page about assets you bring into the marriage.
Step 3 — Drafting
We draft to the disclosures, not to a template. The instrument identifies the parties and the intended marriage, states the regime chosen, allocates the listed assets and liabilities, and writes down every carve-out either of you has in mind. That last point is the whole discipline: an intention that stays in a conversation is not in the agreement.
Step 4 — Independent review, both sides
The draft goes to both of you, and we go through it together on a call before anyone signs. Where either partner wants their own counsel to review it, we welcome that and work with them. This is not caution for its own sake. In Delgado v. GQ Realty Development Corp. (G.R. No. 241774, September 25, 2019) the Supreme Court enforced an ante-nuptial agreement against the very spouse whose lawyers had written it, and explained why:
It is elementary that any ambiguity in a contract whose terms are susceptible of different interpretations must be read against the party who drafted it, who in this case was petitioner Francisco.
The lesson runs in both directions. A clause that only one side understood is a clause that will be construed against whoever produced it, and a settlement both parties genuinely negotiated is the one that survives.
Step 5 — Signing and notarization
Article 77 of the Family Code requires that the settlement be in writing, signed by the parties, and executed before the celebration of the marriage. We execute it as a notarized public instrument, with both of you appearing personally and identification presented, well before the wedding week rather than in it. Delgado is instructive on sequence as well: the agreement there was dated 15 June 1987 for a marriage celebrated on 20 June 1987, and the Court applied it on its plain terms. The formal requirements are set out in full on our requirements page.
Step 6 — Registration
Signing binds the two of you. Registration is what makes the settlement effective against everyone else. Article 77 again:
They shall not prejudice third persons unless they are registered in the local civil registry where the marriage contract is recorded as well as in the proper registries of properties.
Two registrations, not one: the local civil registry where the marriage contract is recorded, and the proper registry of property for each covered asset. Skip the second and a bank or a creditor is entitled to deal with the property as though the settlement did not exist. We handle both filings and give you the stamped copies.
Step 7 — Safekeeping, and an apostille if you will live abroad
You keep originals; we keep a file copy. If the couple intends to live outside the Philippines, we also arrange authentication of the notarized instrument through the Department of Foreign Affairs, so the document travels in a form foreign institutions can process. Whether a foreign court will give it effect is a separate question, governed by that country's law and answered by counsel there — we set out that boundary honestly on our page about enforceability abroad.
How long this really takes
Start two to three months before the wedding. That is firm practice, not a statutory period, and it exists because the drafting is never the slow part — disclosure is, revision is, and registration comes after signing. A couple who begins in the final fortnight is competing with the marriage licence, the PSA documents and the family, and the settlement is what gets dropped. Miss the ceremony and the private route is gone; the deadline and what remains after it are explained on our deadline page. What the work costs is on the cost page.
Frequently asked questions
How long does preparing a prenup take?
As a matter of firm practice we ask couples to start two to three months before the wedding. The drafting itself is not the slow part — disclosure from both sides, the revisions that follow once both partners have read the draft, and registration after signing are what need the room.
Do we both need our own lawyer?
You are not required to have separate counsel, but both of you must genuinely understand what you are signing, and we encourage independent review. In Delgado v. GQ Realty the Supreme Court said it is elementary that any ambiguity in a contract whose terms are susceptible of different interpretations must be read against the party who drafted it.
Does the prenup have to be registered?
Registration is what makes it effective against outsiders. Article 77 of the Family Code provides that marriage settlements shall not prejudice third persons unless they are registered in the local civil registry where the marriage contract is recorded as well as in the proper registries of properties. Unregistered, it still binds the two of you between yourselves.
Can most of this be done before we are in the same country?
Yes. The consultation is held by video at an hour that works across both time zones, and disclosures and drafts are exchanged by email and reviewed on a call with both partners present. Only the signing needs you physically together, and it is scheduled before the ceremony.