You may be headed toward your Massachusetts divorce feeling that, even though everything else in your life is going wrong, at least your prenuptial agreement will prevent a disaster in divorce court. At the Law Offices of Sheara F. Friend, we often assist clients in assessing the validity of their prenuptial and postnuptial agreements so they are prepared for property division negotiations.
If your prenuptial agreement protects much of your property from your spouse, he or she may try to claim that the document should be thrown out. FindLaw explains that grounds for an invalid prenuptial agreement may include one or more of the following:
- The spouse felt pressured to sign
- The spouse did not read or understand it
- The spouse did not get enough time to fully think things through before signing
- Important information was left out
- Some of the information in the agreement was false
- The agreement leaves the spouse in severe financial hardship
There could also be a problem with the document if one or both of you included terms that cannot legally be enforced. For example, if your spouse insisted on a clause that stated he or she would not pay child support after the divorce if the two of you had children, the judge may void the entire document; a prenuptial agreement cannot be used to get out of paying child support. On the other hand, the judge may decide the rest of the document is enforceable if that is the only problem. Similarly, terms based on irrelevant information are not enforceable, such as if the document includes an agreement that you will do the dishes every night, or that your spouse will remain under a certain weight.
Prenuptial and postnuptial agreements can be very helpful tools in a divorce. More information about these financial documents can be found on our website.