Prenuptial Agreement Law In Florida
Prenuptial agreements in Florida can be used to protect the assets of either party involved in a marriage. This is a common way to protect existing business or property that comes with one party into a marriage. If you are concerned about losing your property or your assets in a possible divorce, a prenuptial can help you to protect these items if you should split up with your spouse.
The St. Petersburg family law lawyers at Lopez Law has years of experience with prenuptial law and can help you draft the right legal agreement to protect your assets when you marry. These documents are often essential to the marriage process, and having them drafted correctly is key.
What Are the Uses for Prenuptial Agreements?
- Protection of businesses and assets that come into a marriage with one partner and not the other
- To protect assets which cannot be divided equally in the event of a divorce
- Protection of pension plans and retirement funding
- Protection of finances related to support of children involved in the marriage
- Protection of inheritance assets
- Protection of pensions
- Protection of life insurance policies
- Protection of alimony
Agreements related to marriage of this kind are meant to be protected from being contested in the event of a divorce. This allows partners who are entering into a marriage to be sure that a divorce will not deprive them of their assets unfairly.
While prenuptials were once considered to be the province of the very wealthy, today, Florida is a state where these agreements are encouraged for everyone with assets to protect who is entering into a marriage. This means that the practice of creating postnuptial agreements has seen an uptick as well compared to previous years.
The more clarity that there is regarding the legal status of assets that are going to be potentially involved in a divorce, the better. If you have any kind of property or asset that you want to protect during your marriage, you should work with a skilled legal team to create a prenuptial or postnuptial to protect these assets. The other party who will be signing the agreement will need to be made aware of all of the details and have full disclosure of the potential impact of this agreement on their assets or access to income following a divorce.
What Are Prenuptials Not Allowed to Cover?
Prenuptials are not allowed to cover child custody or things like the division of debts following a divorce. The agreement is not a contract and is instead a stated protection of specific assets. The creation of these documents cannot be done to determine in advance how divorce proceedings will be done. The divorce process will still have to be followed, even if there is a prenuptial that is in place for specific assets that might be involved in the divorce.
The Uniform Premarital Agreement Act is used to govern the creation of these documents. Prenuptial agreements in the state of Florida need to include:
- The rights of the parties concerning the assets or liabilities in question
- The right to buy, sell, use, transfer, or dispose of the property in question
- Distribution of property related to changes like separation, dissolution, death, or other events that might impact the assets
- The right to alimony payments
- Items that are related to the making of a will or a trust
- The disposition of life insurance proceeds
There might be specific inclusions in the document that are specific to your unique situation as well. An experienced lawyer will be able to help you create the correct prenuptial agreement for your specific use and your specific needs.
Factors Essential to the Validity of Prenuptials
There are various factors that are required to be in place for a prenuptial to be able to be upheld. These factors all have to be in place for the prenuptial to be considered legally viable.
- Legal signatures of both parties
- Voluntarily created by both parties
- Created truthfully
Premarital agreements have to be agreed upon at every stage of the process of writing the document and putting it in place. If there is a chance that there was coercion, fraud, or other tactics used to create the document, it can often be invalidated in a court of law.
These are the key factors that are looked into when there is a dispute over a prenuptial. If you have entered into this kind of legal agreement and believe that you were coerced into signing, you can count on the team at Lopez Law to help you seek to have the agreement invalidated.
The team at Lopez Law can also make sure that there are no steps missed in the process of creating your prenuptial agreement. We want to be sure that the prenuptials that we create can be upheld if a divorce should come to pass.
Are Prenuptials Non-Modifiable?
Prenuptials agreements should consider not just the current status of assets and investments that are protected by them, but they should also consider the future condition of these assets. These agreements should not be modified. Careful planning is therefore required for these documents, which affords protection to the investments and assets in the future as well as the present.
Jobs can change, income can change, and assets can lose value, but that does not mean that earning more or less money via these assets should alter the conditions of the prenuptial agreement. As an example, even if someone’s home is part of the prenuptial agreement and it suddenly has significantly more value, that does not mean that the other spouse is entitled to this value above and beyond the stated value at the time of the creation of the prenuptial.
Does Adultery Invalidate a Prenuptial Agreement?
Misconduct within the marriage does not naturally break the prenuptial agreement. This is one of the primary reasons that prenuptials are very effective legally during a divorce. Adultery would need to be significant enough to have completely altered the state of the asset that is named in the prenuptial in order for adultery to affect the action of following the prenuptial agreement.
There are a few landmark cases where prenuptial agreements have been invalidated due to the gross nature of the actions taken by someone who is affected by the prenuptial agreement. This is not common, but an experienced legal team will have the ability to use these landmark cases to make this argument if it applies to your prenuptial agreement and your divorce.
Prenuptials can be voided in the state of Florida, but only after it has been challenged in a court of law. Specific provisions of the agreement can be invalidated due to duress, coercion, failure to disclose assets, or fraud as well. Since both parties have to have their own legal representation during the divorce, both teams should be able to provide information that clearly indicates the arguments on each side of the prenuptial agreement.
Judges often have to determine, based on prior cases, whether or not the prenuptial agreement has been invalidated. The prenuptial agreement will almost always be upheld regardless of the details surrounding the rest of the divorce process. You cannot seek to have a prenuptial invalidated simply because you have realized later on that it is not fair to you as the other spouse involved in the agreement.
Lack of disclosure is one of the main reasons that these agreements are voided, but you should have been asked to sign this agreement and should have been familiar with its contents prior to signing it. A lack of awareness about the legal nature of the document is not a prerequisite to being able to void the document later on.
What is a Postnuptial Agreement?
While these agreements are not as commonly created in the state of Florida as prenuptials, they have the same legal value to protect assets during a divorce or separation. Postnups are still not allowed to address child support, childcare agreements, and assets that are not named in the postnuptial agreement.
Oral contracts are not enforceable for this legal function. The agreement must be written and must be signed by both parties who entered into the agreement voluntarily. Full disclosure is essential to these agreements and a lack of disclosure can again lead to voiding the agreement in the future.
Why Are Prenuptials Effective?
Prenuptials not only protect specific assets in a divorce, they also protect the court system from years of litigation over assets or investments that are almost impossible to split equally. Businesses and things like retirement, which are used to support someone when they reach old age, should not be split equally during a divorce because this is nearly impossible to do fairly.
Property can also be impossible to split equally, and many couples are forced to sell their home in order to split it “equally” during a divorce. The prenuptial allows the court system to move divorces forward more rapidly and with litigation. The prenuptial offers financial protection for those who are involved in a divorce, but prenuptials also protect the legal system from becoming impossibly overburdened by simple divorce cases.
Income that is earned during a marriage is considered part of the assets of the marriage. This relates to alimony as well as child support. This is part of why prenuptials can help to protect someone from losing everything in a divorce. Separating items is easier than dealing with disputes over income, and the prenuptial agreement makes a big impact on helping to divide income fairly in a divorce as well.
What is an Elective Share?
In the state of Florida, when someone passes away, their spouse is required to receive 30% of the estate. However, a prenuptial agreement will allow this law to be bypassed if necessary to comply with the prenuptial. The prenuptial should surpass the standard when there is no prenuptial agreement in place protecting specific assets.
The elective share law can negatively impact a surviving spouse if the assets that should have been protected by a prenuptial are split up in some way that causes financial hardship to affect them or their family members. When inheritance is in play, assets that are essential to someone’s financial well-being can be passed on to other people who are related to the person who passed away.
When Should Prenuptials be Signed?
Your lawyer will be able to advise you about the correct timeline for your prenuptial signature date and process and you should stick to the timeline that they arrange for the process to get this document in place ahead of your marriage.
Working With an Experienced Legal Team Matters
Whether you need to draft a prenuptial with our help or you need assistance in contesting a prenuptial that you feel was placed through coercion or fraud, you can count on the team at Lopez Law. We have the years of experience that you need access to when it comes to prenuptial law. Having a skilled lawyer on your side can make all the difference when it comes to creating, breaking, or possibly modifying prenuptial agreements.
Contact us today for a case evaluation. We are eager to be able to help you with your prenuptial case, no matter what your needs might be.