In short, most Texas prenup Agreements are enforceable, and you should expect that the document signed before the wedding will hold up now. However, there are times when a prenuptial agreement may have some grey area or be unclear on what it means to divide the property. In those cases, your spouse’s attorney may try to exploit them to create an unfair division of assets.
What you need when this happens is a Houston, Texas divorce attorney that can walk you through each asset division and explain why it’s happening that way.
Why Do People Sign Texas Prenup Agreements?
People sign prenups as an act of trust and good faith. They may also do it to protect family funds or family assets, which the new family member may compromise in the event of a divorce. Although the entire concept of a prenup seems unromantic, it is showing the same expression of trust in another person as a marriage.
But, when it comes time for a divorce, the people on the short end of the prenup find themselves realizing that maybe it wasn’t so romantic. The use of prenup agreements is on the rise with younger generations.
How Can a Court Enforce a Prenup?
While a prenup exists in order to protect both parties, it almost always ends in one person have a more desirable outcome than the other. While we’ve seen the extent of “iron-clad” prenups in movies such as “Diary of a Mad Black Woman,” it’s not always clear if prenups are really that enforceable.
One of the big-ticket items for premarital agreements is that the couple keeps separate earnings rather than household earnings now if you benefited from that individual’s earning for years or even decades, that does not exclude you from continued support. While they may have wanted to keep their income and earning potential separate if their earnings became the foundation for the household and the majority of the support, you may have access to continued support. Prenups do not inherently exclude the possibility of monthly spousal support.
Ultimately, no one should enter into a prenup without quite a bit of thought, as these contracts are often very difficult to break.
A prenup or a premarital agreement is the opportunity to put into writing how you want to handle communal property and more. In most prenups, the declaration is that both will have completely separate property. But the issue is that declaring that doesn’t make it impossible for the couple to have communal property.
Can You Invalidate Texas Prenup Agreements?
It is possible to break, nullify, or invalidate a prenup in Texas. Usually, this has to do with timing. The very purpose of a prenuptial agreement is that it is made prior to the marriage. When an agreement is made afterward, it’s something very different. Now, if the document was finalized after the marriage, it is not valid. Additionally, if the marriage is not valid, then it’s not something that the court can uphold.
Perhaps the most common cause behind breaking a prenup is a poorly written prenuptial agreement. Contracts have requirements, and if those requirements aren’t met, then a judge is not in any position to uphold the content of that material.
For example, if the prenup simply stated that all future earnings would remain the property of each spouse, it’s not clear on what anything refers to. The first portion referring to all future earnings could include tax returns, stock portfolio earnings, and more. Then when you look at the second portion where it refers to each spouse, it doesn’t declare that the property would go to the respective spouse.
When you have difficulty, unclear, or challenging phrasing, a judge and the lawyers involved will often throw it out entirely because the language doesn’t mean anything. This situation often happens with self-drafted or templated prenups that use a lot of legal-ese to confuse the signer.
Start By Calling a Houston Family Law Attorney to Start Your Divorce
At Eddington Worley Family Law in Houston, you can be sure that you’ll have the full support you need through the divorce process. Not only will you have legal professionals by your side, but financial experts and more than can help explain how a prenup affects your divorce.
Get the help you need now, call our offices and meet with a local Houston attorney. When you’re looking at a complicated divorce matter such as a prenuptial agreement, then you need a legal guide to navigate the rough path ahead of you.