Posted by Nydia Streets of Streets Law in Florida Prenuptial and Postnuptial Agreements
How do you ensure that a Florida prenuptial agreement will be upheld? There are careful steps and considerations which must be taken when a prenuptial agreement is entered, and it is usually not enough for parties to just download a form online and sign it. When a party alleges there is fraud, duress or coercion involved in the entry of this type of agreement, a court must analyze the circumstances surrounding the execution of the agreement. This was an issue in the case Bates v. Bates, 3D19-1884 (Fla. 3d DCA February 3, 2021).
The evidence showed the parties met through a matchmaking website. The wife lived in Colombia and the husband was a divorced airline pilot with a net worth of $4 million looking to bring a wife to the Florida Keys. The wife turned 18 just three days prior to meeting the husband. The wife had the equivalent of a high school education and spoke very little English. Before they married, the wife, who was from a strict Catholic household, became pregnant by the husband. The husband paid for her to get an abortion. Shortly after this, the husband presented the wife with a prenuptial agreement and advised that he needed her to sign it in order for them to marry. The wife did not have a Florida attorney review the agreement, and she did not read it. She had an appointment at the embassy to start her immigration process, and days before that, the parties were married in a civil ceremony at the wife’s home in Colombia. This all happened within three months after the parties initially met online.
The parties later married in the Catholic church, and once the immigration process was completed, the wife moved to the Florida Keys with the husband, and they had five children before the wife filed a petition for dissolution of marriage about 16 years after the parties initially met. The wife moved to set aside the prenuptial agreement on grounds that it was reached under fraud, deceit, duress, coercion or misrepresentation. A hearing was held on the motion, and the court determined that under the circumstances, the wife had been under duress and coercion in signing the agreement. The husband appealed.
The appellate court considered the applicable standard of law: “There are two distinct grounds for invalidating a prenuptial agreement: (1) where the defending spouse has engaged in 'fraud, deceit, duress, coercion, misrepresentation, or overreaching'; and (2) where 'the agreement makes an unfair or unreasonable provision for [the challenging] spouse, given the [relative] circumstances of the parties.'..." Focusing on the trial court’s conclusions that there had been duress and coercion, the appellate court analyzed the circumstances to determine whether they amounted to duress or coercion.
As to duress, the appellate court held “the trial court might have been correct that Wife was fearful as to what would happen if her family, who raised her in a strict Catholic household, learned of Wife's pre-marital relations with Husband, her pregnancy and her subsequent abortion. What is missing in this case, however, is any evidence from which it could be inferred that Husband had threatened to tell Wife's family about these circumstances if Wife did not execute the prenuptial agreement. There being no evidence that Husband threatened to besmirch Wife's reputation for his own pecuniary gain, we conclude that there was not competent, substantial evidence to support the trial court's finding of duress.”
However, the appellate court found there had been coercion, holding “Husband repeatedly told Wife that ‘it was a requirement’ that the prenuptial agreement be signed for Wife to come to the United States. More important, Husband told Wife she needed to sign the prenuptial agreement before their upcoming appointment with the Colombian embassy, implying that signing the agreement was part of the emigration process. Contrary to what Husband told Wife, immigration to the United States is not conditioned on the execution of a prenuptial agreement. These acts, combined with the time pressure aspects of the parties' courtship and Wife's vulnerable physical and emotional condition following the abortion, constitute competent, substantial evidence to support the trial court's finding of coercion.”
To give your prenuptial agreement the best chance of being upheld, it is important to consult with a Florida prenuptial agreement lawyer. A consultation may help you understand why certain steps are necessary in completing your agreement, and why an online template is usually not enough.