Prenuptial and postnuptial agreements in Florida: what holds up Prenuptial and postnuptial agreements in Florida: what holds up

Florida adopted the Uniform Premarital Agreement Act (section 61.079) for agreements since 2007: a signed writing, enforceable without consideration beyond the marriage itself. A challenger must prove involuntariness (fraud, duress, coercion, overreaching) — or that the agreement was unconscionable when signed and they lacked fair disclosure, didn't waive it, and lacked adequate knowledge. Florida layers decades of its own case law on top, with courts particularly attentive to the circumstances of execution: timing, opportunity for counsel, and the quality of disclosure.

What a Florida prenup can do: classify property and its appreciation, structure or waive alimony (with a statutory backstop — a waiver leaving a spouse on public assistance at dissolution can be overridden to that extent), fix valuation methods, protect a business's cap table from a future dissolution court — and, distinctively, waive elective share, homestead devise restrictions, and other spousal death rights, which requires precise statutory formalities and is worth every ounce of precision. Cannot do: bind courts on child support or parenting; children's issues are decided when they arise.

Florida has enforced postnuptial agreements for decades under Casto v. Casto: a postnup falls only for (1) fraud, duress, coercion, misrepresentation, or overreaching, or (2) facial unreasonableness plus the challenging spouse's lack of adequate knowledge of the other's finances — with full disclosure curing the second track entirely. Married spouses deal with each other in a confidential relationship, so Florida courts read disclosure obligations seriously in postnups. Classic uses: the business that took off mid-marriage, inheritance integration, reconciliation terms, structured separation in the state with no legal separation status (the Florida workaround), and estate coordination for blended families.

Documented, attached financial disclosure — schedules of everything, acknowledged in writing. Independent counsel on both sides, actually consulted, with time to use it. Execution weeks or months before the wedding, with a paper trail of negotiation. Death-rights waivers drafted to the statutory letter. And terms designed for time — tiered provisions and sunset adjustments that keep a twenty-year-old agreement from reading as an ambush.

Brown Carrington drafts Florida agreements that work in both courtrooms — the divorce division and probate. That dual craftsmanship is the product.