Prenuptial Agreement

Sweating the Small Stuff: How Diligently Tending to All the Details Can Be Essential to Having an Enforceable Prenuptial Agreement in Maryland

November 17, 2022 | by Anthony A. Fatemi, LLC

Statistical research says that as many as 80% of people of divorced people will eventually remarry. The bad news is that second and subsequent marriages have a greater than 60% chance of ending in divorce. What’s all that mean? It means that, before you embark on that second or subsequent marriage, it is wise to consider pre-marital planning — such as a prenuptial agreement — before you wed. An experienced Maryland family law attorney can help you go about taking all the necessary steps to protect what you’ve built up to this point in your life.

A fairly negotiated and properly executed prenuptial agreement can be a huge help if you and your new spouse-to-be both have substantial wealth. It can be of even greater value if you have amassed wealth and your spouse-to-be has not, as one recent prenuptial agreement case from Baltimore County helps to illustrate.

In the Baltimore County case, the husband was a man in his early 50s who owned a successful construction and refrigeration business. He’d been married once, having divorced after 25 years, and had four adult children. The wife was in her late 20s, had a 12-year-old daughter, and according to the court, “was employed at an adult entertainment establishment” when she met the husband.

How an Extramarital Affair Cost a Maryland Spouse $7M After a Maryland Court Upheld His Postnuptial Agreement

October 31, 2022 | by Anthony A. Fatemi, LLC

As is true of all contracts, prenuptial and postnuptial agreements require several ingredients for success. All parties should negotiate with good faith, and endeavor to live up to the promises they make in the agreement, as opposed to assuming that, if they fall short of the agreement’s terms, their attorney simply can get them out of it by getting the contract invalidated. If you are considering a postnuptial agreement, make sure that the terms you empower your Maryland family law attorney to negotiate are ones that you can live with… and live up to.

That background brings us to an interesting recent case from here in Montgomery County that involved a postnuptial agreement.

The wife was an account executive for a catering company. The husband was a wealth management advisor and wasn’t always faithful to his spouse. The wife discovered one of the husband’s affairs in 2014 and the couple separated. They eventually worked toward reconciliation, but the wife only agreed to continue the marriage if the husband signed a postnuptial agreement.

‘Pure Hot Rage’: ‘Washingtonian’ Looks at Female Payors of Alimony in Maryland, DC, and Virginia… and Ways to Potentially Avoid Undesirable Alimony Outcomes

August 17, 2022 | by Anthony A. Fatemi, LLC

Late last year, Washingtonian covered a trend regarding alimony that’s on the rise in Maryland, D.C., and Northern Virginia: divorces where higher-earning wives leave owing alimony to their husbands. The piece is a useful reminder that anyone (husband or wife) can potentially be ordered to pay alimony in Maryland and that ways (such as prenuptial agreements) exist to help avoid part or all of the horror of an unexpectedly unfavorable divorce judgment. Whether you’re negotiating a prenup or litigating alimony, make sure you have a knowledgeable Maryland family law lawyer on your side to fight for a fair outcome.

Many of the ex-wives in the Washingtonian piece expressed deep anger and resentment about paying alimony to ex-husbands who they viewed as insufficiently industrious. One wife described her husband as someone whom she “begged” to find a job, always without success. Another expressed resentment about owing alimony from a marriage where she allegedly earned the bulk of the family’s income and also bore the lion’s share of responsibility for domestic tasks.

One wife complained, “It’s not just as simple as saying, ‘Because men pay it, women should pay it, too.'”

When Your Spouse Can (and Can’t) Get Alimony in Maryland Even After Your Both Signed an Agreement Waiving the Right to Alimony

April 29, 2022 | by Anthony A. Fatemi, LLC

When you decide to enter into a prenuptial agreement or a marital settlement agreement, there are several critical phases. There’s the phase where you and the other party negotiate the terms of the agreement, and you work to ensure that all the terms adequately protect your interests. There’s also the phase where you and the other party execute the agreement, and you work to ensure that the document you sign matches the bargain you struck during the negotiation phase. Finally, there may be a phase where you have to litigate to enforce the agreement and get the benefit of the contract you signed. At each of these phases, your chances of getting the fairest possible outcome can be enhanced by having legal representation from an experienced Maryland spousal support (alimony) lawyer.

That’s because, at any phase, things can go astray from what you wanted… and executed.

For example, there’s the alimony case of X.L. and H.L., a couple who, in March 2016, worked out a prenuptial agreement. In that document, both spouses agreed to waive the right to receive alimony in the event of separation or divorce. They married one month later.

What Some Celebrity Prenuptial Agreement Disputes Can Teach You About Your Maryland Prenup

February 28, 2022 | by Anthony A. Fatemi, LLC

Here in Maryland, a prenuptial agreement can be a very beneficial thing for both you and your future spouse. Some people consider a prenuptial agreement to be the cynical ploy of someone who’s already planning a divorce before the wedding has even occurred, but that is rarely the reality. A well-written and fairly negotiated prenuptial agreement can give you confidence that you and your spouse will be in control, rather than a court, if the marriage eventually ends. Making sure that both you and your spouse are working with knowledgeable Maryland prenuptial agreement lawyers can go a long way in ensuring you get something that is fair, mutually agreeable, and largely safe from a subsequent legal attack.

Prenuptial agreements have been in the news a lot lately. In December, music mogul Dr. Dre finalized his divorce. During that litigation, the hip-hop icon sought to enforce a prenuptial agreement. The wife strongly opposed, arguing that she signed the agreement under duress.

Four months earlier, another celebrity prenuptial agreement dispute came to a close. Singer and talk-show host Kelly Clarkson successfully argued for the enforcement of the prenuptial agreement that she and her husband signed. News reports generally did not indicate why the husband thought the prenup was invalid.

When a Prenuptial Agreement May Be Declared Invalid by the Courts in Maryland

June 9, 2021 | by Anthony A. Fatemi, LLC

Prenuptial agreements can be an important part of a couple’s pre-marital planning. Obviously, if you’re going to the trouble to create and execute a prenuptial agreement, you want to be sure that the prenuptial agreement you have is something that, if it is eventually needed, will be enforced by the courts. A skilled Maryland divorce lawyer can help you in setting up your prenuptial agreement to get something that will meet the law’s requirements and do what it is supposed to do.

Here in Maryland, there are several ways that a prenuptial agreement may fail to qualify to be enforced. A recent case from Montgomery County is an example of how the process can go wrong and lead to an invalid agreement.

G.H. and H.H. were a couple who married in the summer of 2011. It was his third marriage and her second. According to the wife, the husband did not bring up anything about a prenuptial agreement until roughly one week before the wedding day. The agreement that the husband presented to the wife was written by the husband’s lawyer and was composed in English, a language with which the wife allegedly had limited skills.

The Legal Effect that the Agreements You Made in Your Religious Marriage Ceremony Will — and Won’t — Have on Your Maryland Divorce

February 12, 2021 | by Anthony A. Fatemi, LLC

One of the things that makes divorce different than many other legal matters is something fundamental to many marriages. For lots of people, marriage (and, by extension, divorce) is a place where the secular and the sacred meet… where man’s laws intersect with God’s laws. Whatever your religion teaches about marriage and/or divorce, it is vitally important, if you are going through a divorce in Maryland, to understand how the civil laws of Maryland will view your situation. To get the answers about these kinds of issues, as well all the other issues your divorce case presents, look to an experienced Maryland family law attorney, who can offer you customized advice based on your specific situation.

Last year, this blog discussed a case involving two Islamic couples divorcing in Maryland. Both that case and a much newer divorce case recently decided by the Court of Special Appeals are illustrative of the problems that can arise for these couples in terms of interpreting the agreements they made during their religious marriage.

If you are someone going through a Maryland divorce after having gone through an Islamic marriage process (or some other religious marriage process with similar procedures), the most important thing to understand is not how your religion views those marital processes, but how the Maryland courts will see them.

Maryland Law Generally Treats Prenuptial Agreement as Contract

February 12, 2016 | by Anthony A. Fatemi, LLC

The marriage of two people is a joyous event. A couple that decides to marry is expressing hope for their future lives together. Despite their love and devotion for each other, spouses sometimes enter into a “prenuptial” or “ante-nuptial” agreement prior to their wedding day. Such agreements may include various terms, depending on the circumstances of the parties, but they typically set forth the distribution of certain assets in the event of a divorce. Entering into a prenuptial agreement may be considered a prudent course of action, especially if one party has a significant amount of wealth at the time of the marriage. To determine whether a prenuptial agreement is right for your circumstances, you are encouraged to consult with a Maryland family law lawyer as soon as possible.

Essentially, a prenuptial agreement is a contract. And while there are no specific Maryland laws that govern prenuptial agreements, the formation and enforceability of such a document is subject to general principles of contract law. For instance, the parties must mutually agree to the terms of the agreement, which should be in writing. If a couple with a prenuptial agreement seeks to divorce, courts are often called upon to determine the validity of the document. In so doing, courts will look at whether: 1) the agreement was fair and equitable; 2) the parties each gave a full, complete, and truthful disclosure of their assets prior to document signing; 3) each party entered into the agreement freely, voluntarily, and knowingly; and 4) each party sought independent legal advice prior to signing the agreement.