Marriage agreements are usually appropriate when:
#*one or both of the parties have a substantial amount of property going into the marriage,#*one of the parties expects to acquire substantial property during the marriage, through, for example, a business, an inheritance, a settlement or court award, or a gift,#*the parties want to avoid some of the stress and anger that can come after separation by deciding in <span class="noglossary">advance</span> how certain difficult issues, like the division of property and debt, will be dealt with,#*one or both of the parties experienced an ugly court battle leaving a previous relationship,#*one or both of the parties will be bringing children from a previous relationship into the marriage, or#*one of the parties is entering the marriage with substantial debt.
In most cases, people generally want to protect the property that they're bringing into the marriage and avoid the scheme for dividing property and debt set out in the provincial ''[[Family Law Act]]''; many people are looking for an "I'll keep what's mine, you'll keep what's yours" sort of deal, and that — or any other reasonable kind of arrangement — is precisely what you can get with a marriage agreement.