Postnuptial agreement

What it means

A postnuptial agreement deals with the same ground as a prenuptial one: property, income, debt, and what each spouse may claim from the other, including at death. The difference is that the couple is already married when they sign it.

Several statutes name both kinds together, so on those provisions an agreement made after the wedding does the same work as one made before.

It is not simply a prenup signed later. Before a wedding each person can walk away; afterward they cannot, and states have taken different views about what that changes.

Why it matters

It is the route available to a couple who meant to deal with this before the wedding and ran out of time.

In at least one state a waiver of a marital right is unenforceable unless it sits inside a premarital or marital agreement, which can make one necessary rather than optional when an estate plan depends on a waiver.

When you are likely to meet it

• After a business is started or sold, or an inheritance arrives.
• When one spouse leaves paid work or cuts back.
• When an estate plan is rewritten after a remarriage.

How this varies by state

Whether a state judges an agreement made during a marriage by the same standard it applies to one made before a wedding is set by that state and is not read in this corpus.

Related terms

• Elective shareA surviving spouse's right to claim a minimum portion of the estate, even if the will leaves them less or nothing.
• Marital propertyProperty treated as belonging to the marriage rather than to either spouse alone.
• Prenuptial agreementA written agreement signed before a marriage that changes some of the financial and property rules the marriage would otherwise bring with it.
• Pretermitted spouseSomeone who married after their partner made a will, and who some states give a share of the estate anyway.
• Revocable living trustA trust you create during your lifetime, keep control of, and can change or cancel at any time. Property held in it does not go through probate.
• Separate propertyIn a community property state, what belongs to one spouse alone — usually what they brought into the marriage, and what they inherited or were given.
• Spousal supportMoney one spouse pays the other after a marriage ends. Some states call it alimony, some maintenance.
• Right of survivorshipA form of shared ownership where the survivor automatically takes the whole thing.
• WillA written document saying who should receive what, and who should be in charge of seeing that it happens.

Sahvelo guidance that uses this

• Already married? What a postnup can and cannot do