Under California community property laws, any property acquired after the marriage is presumed to be community property and should be split between the parties after a divorce. A prenup allows the parties to ignore community property laws and divide their assets any way they want, avoiding the mandated split.
Property acquired during marriage is presumed to be community property with the exception of property acquired by gift or inheritance, produced by separate property rents, issues, and profits , or acquired after the date of separation. These exceptions are characterized as separate property even if acquired during marriage.
Community property is split evenly between the parties to a divorce but each party keeps their separate property, which would allow Zuckerberg to hang onto his Facebook fortune. Had Zuckerberg married on Thursday May 19th his billions would be part of the community. For instance, if Zuckerberg has stock options and grants that will vest during the marriage Chan could be entitled to those assets. Here's everything you need to know about Zuckerberg and Chan's year-long relationship, and how the couple spends their time when the CEO isn't running Facebook.
Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg met in line for the bathroom at a Harvard University party in Zuckerberg's fraternity, Alpha Epsilon Pi, was hosting a party and Chan, a sophomore student from the Boston area, was there. Chan said that when she first met Zuckerberg, she thought he might get kicked out of school for a prank he pulled: the hot-or-not website ranking the attractiveness of students on campus, called "Facemash," that Zuckerberg notoriously created in his sophomore year at Harvard.
Zuckerberg was also expecting to get kicked out of Harvard when he met Chan. In his commencement address at Harvard, Zuckerberg said his opening line to Chan was: "I'm going to get kicked out in three days, so we need to go on a date quickly. When Zuckerberg took Chan out for the first time, he told her he'd "rather go on a date with [her] than finish his take-home midterm," Chan said in an interview with the Today Show in Chan was one of the first people to join Facebook, on February 5, Zuckerberg officially dropped out of Harvard in the fall of , after his sophomore year, to focus on building Facebook.
He moved out to Palo Alto, California, where Facebook opened its first office. Perhaps the most telling sign of their long relationship is that Chan knew Zuckerberg before hoodies became his clothing of choice.
In , Chan graduated from Harvard, and Zuckerberg was there to celebrate. Chan then followed him to California, and entered medical school at the University of California, San Francisco in She rented an apartment near Golden Gate Park, where Zuckerberg would visit her most weekends. Early on in their relationship, Chan set some strict ground rules because Zuckerberg was so busy with Facebook.
Chan required one date per week, and a minimum of minutes of alone time per week not at Facebook. Sundays are reserved for Asian cuisine," the New Yorker wrote about the couple in Chan has been there through all the ups and downs. Here, she helped Zuckerberg take photos of himself for a BusinessWeek story in Chan told the New Yorker in that time period was the most stressed out she'd seen Zuckerberg.
The same logic-- avoiding messy court fights-- enters into the calculus of a prenuptial agreement. A prenuptial agreement in California typically states how spouses would divide assets in the event of a divorce. The couple usually waives the right to make claims based on community-property laws, which state that any property created after the marriage is essentially community property and should be split evenly after any divorce.
California is one of a handful of states with community-property laws. Since the couple wed -- in a surprise ceremony billed as a med school graduation party for Chan -- the day after Facebook went public , anything Zuckerberg earns on his stock is considered solely his property should the couple one day divorce.
Despite any increase in the value of Zuckerberg's shares in the future, they will remain separate property unless he combines it with the couple's other assets, Anteau added.
As long as the money isn't deposited into a joint bank account, for example, it will be considered his alone, according to California law. Zuckerberg's Facebook options are a different story, however. Although he already exercised 60 million of his million stock options in conjunction with the IPO, he is still sitting on the other 60 million.
Depending on when the options were granted and when they will be exercised, there is now a community property interest, which means that, as his wife, Chan could stand to benefit substantially if Zuckerberg makes another bundle on those options in the future.
Unless, of course, there is a prenuptial agreement in place safeguarding his Facebook fortune, which Anteau says is likely.
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