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Will Your Prenuptial Agreement Hold Up If You Get A Divorce in the Orlando, Florida Area?

Whether your prenuptial agreement will hold up if you are divorced in the Orlando, Florida Area depends on many factors. Here are few factors for you think about. Make sure that you do not do these things if you are in the process of developing a prenuptial agreement because they will cause your prenuptial agreement to be invalidated. 

It is the black letter law that parties to an antenuptial agreement do not deal at arms-length with each other. Rather their relationship is one of mutual trust and confidence. As such, the parties must exercise the highest degree of good faith, candor, and sincerity in all matters bearing on the terms and execution of the proposed agreement, with fairness being the ultimate measure.  

Section 61.079(7) (a), Florida Statutes (2019), in relevant part, provides: A premarital agreement is not enforceable in an action proceeding under the Florida Family Law Rules of Procedure if the party against whom enforcement is sought proves that the agreement was the product of fraud, duress, coercion, or overarching. Duress is defined as a condition of mind produced by an improper external pressure or influence that practically destroys the free agency of a party and causes him/her to do and act or make a contract not of his/her own volition. It must be shown that the act sought to be set aside was affected involuntary and thus not as an exercise of free choice or will and that this condition of mind was caused by some improper and coercive conduct of the opposite side. Thus, duress involves a dual concept of external pressure and internal surrender or loss of volition in response to outside compulsion. 

It is not duress for the proponent of the agreement to make it clear that there will be no marriage in the absence of the agreement. Nonetheless, a party may not exploit another for his/her own pecuniary advantage.  

Recently, the court invalidated a prenuptial agreement where the testimony established that the husband initially presented his pregnant wife with the disputed document six days before the wedding. At the time, the wife requested he produces evidence regarding his holdings and net worth. The husband assured the wife such evidence would be forthcoming. 

In lieu of honoring his pledge on the day before the wedding, the husband demanded execution of the prenuptial agreement, with the added ultimatum of no agreement, no wedding. He furthered threatened life-altering consequences, by imperiling their shared long-term plan to begin life anew with their children in the United 

States. 

The Florida appellate court concluded that those circumstances, unrebutted by the husband, are sufficient to support finding of duress. The court found that the timing of the signing of the document indicates that the wife’s signature was the product of duress. Two days before the wedding the wife was presented with a document, the actual terms of which were previously unknown to her and which contained no information about the husband’s finances. She had only one day to seek counsel of her own attorney, to make an independent evaluation of the contract, or to cancel her wedding. The only rational conclusion is that signature was the product of unwarranted compulsion, and the document should have been set aside by the trial on that basis.  

If you have more questions regarding a Marital and Family Law matter, you may call Ann Marie Giordano Gilden, Esquire at Ann Marie Giordano Gilden, P.A. at 407-732-7620 and set an initial consultation. You may also visit my website at: https//: www.AnnMarieGildenLaw.com

This article is for informational purposes only, and it does not form an attorney-client privilege.