If you are considering signing, or have signed, a prenuptial agreement that you aren’t happy about, you may be wondering whether you can contest it later. Prenups are contracts signed by a couple in anticipation of their marriage. New York courts have a preference for allowing individuals to decide the terms of their contracts, even those involving marriage. As a result, it is difficult to challenge a prenuptial agreement after it is signed, unless you fall within the exceptions explained below.
Were You Given All the Facts Before You Signed the Prenup?
Prenups require honesty and transparency. Agreements are only valid to the extent that there is full financial disclosure by both parties. If you were missing information, you may be able to claim fraud or overreaching and invalidate the prenup.
To establish fraud, you must show that your fiancé knowingly concealed or gave you false information about an essential fact, you reasonably relied on the information and you suffered damages as a result.
You can claim overreaching if your fiancé failed to disclose all their income or assets or was otherwise deceptive to gain an unfair advantage over you in negotiating the prenup.
Were You Pressured to Sign the Prenup?
If your fiancé threatened or coerced you to sign and you would not have signed the document absent such coercion, it may constitute duress and make the prenup unenforceable. Duress may also exist if you felt pressured to sign because you were given the prenup shortly before your wedding and weren’t expecting it or the terms were different than what you previously discussed. The judge may consider whether you signed quickly to avoid the cost and embarrassment of rescheduling the wedding.
Did You Have the Opportunity to Review the Prenuptial Agreement with Your Attorney?
When a party contests a prenup, courts will consider whether both sides had sufficient time to review, negotiate, contemplate and understand the terms of the agreement and speak to an attorney before signing. The court will also take into account whether the parties had independent attorneys of relatively equal prominence to review the agreement and provide advice.
If a party did not have much time to consider the agreement, the court may view that as potentially showing duress, especially if there is a substantial imbalance in power between the parties or the terms are very one-sided. If, for example, one side had an attorney who knew little about matrimonial law, or the party may have otherwise been pressured to sign, the court could invalidate the agreement. To be sure, the less time a party had to review the prenup, the closer the court will look at the terms and consider whether that party was taken advantage of in the agreement.
Did You Understand the Terms of the Prenup?
If you genuinely didn’t understand the prenup, the court may invalidate the agreement, particularly if there were other circumstances such as duress, an imbalance in power between the parties or you didn’t have time to consult an attorney. For example, non-English speakers may have a case, especially if the agreement was translated to them at the last minute.
Is the Prenup Unfair to You?
A prenup can be challenged as unconscionable if it is so one-sided or unfair at the time it was signed that it shocks the conscience (a very high threshold from the court’s perspective). For instance, where there is a significant difference in bargaining power between the parties, unfair substantive terms, and little time for the recipient to review and contemplate the agreement and discuss it with counsel, the prenup is more likely to be found unconscionable. However, the court will look at all of the circumstances.
Signing off on an agreement that does not work for your benefit because you don’t think divorce or separation is going to happen to you is not grounds for challenging it. Courts are reluctant to invalidate a prenup unless you can show circumstances like those discussed above that would make it patently unfair to enforce.
If you are considering signing or challenging a prenuptial agreement, contact us to discuss how we can help you.
