Premarital agreements, or prenuptial agreements, as they are commonly called, are excellent tools for both preserving your marriage and making your Florida divorce exponentially easier. However, for the courts to consider your prenuptial agreement valid and enforceable, it must meet certain guidelines. Moreover, the circumstances surrounding and leading up to its creation must be lawful and contain no fraudulent actions. If one party can prove the existence of fraud, duress, coercion or other wrongful doings, the courts may deem your agreement unenforceable.
Per title VI of the Florida Statutes, section 61.079, your premarital agreement is considered unenforceable if the person against whom enforcement is pursued can prove that he or she did not voluntarily execute the agreement, was not provided a just and judicious disclosure of the other party’s assets and liabilities or did not have, or could not have reasonably have had, a sufficient knowledge of the assets or liabilities of the other party. Moreover, your agreement may be unenforceable if you or the other party can prove that your agreement was the product of coercion, fraud, duress or overreaching, or if, when executed, your agreement was in anyway unconscionable.
The law does provide a loophole for parties who fail to fully disclose their assets and liabilities. Under the same section, parties may waive their right to disclosure of property or financial obligations. However, the waiver must be express and in writing.
As for issues of unconscionability of a premarital agreement, that shall be left up to the courts to decide as a matter of law.
The information in this post is for purely informational purposes. It should not be construed as legal advice.
