Source: https://www.divorceny.com/tag/prenuptial-agreement/
Timestamp: 2019-04-18 23:05:46+00:00

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Do Marital and Divorce Agreements Have To Be Signed in the Presence of the Notary?
Marital and divorce agreements have to be “notarized.” But does the notary have to be present and witness the actual signing?
What does “acknowledged or proven in the manner required to entitle a deed to be recorded” mean.
In her June 1, 2016 decision in B.W. v. R.F., Westchester County Supreme Court Justice Linda Christopher upheld a prenuptial agreement in which the notary’s “acknowledgment” used the wrong wording.
The November 12, 2014 decision of the Appellate Division, Second Department, in Bibeau v. Sudick reversed the granting of summary judgment upholding the validity a 2000 prenuptial agreement, remanding the matter for a hearing on that issue.
In September 28, 2000, two days before their wedding, the 70-year old future husband and the 38-year old future wife executed a premarital agreement. It provided that in the event of a divorce, the wife would receive, in lieu of maintenance, support, and equitable distribution, the sum of $25,000 for each year of the marriage. The parties also agreed to waive their interest in the elective share of each other’s estate, and to make no claim to property titled in the other’s name.
According to financial statements attached to the premarital agreement, the future husband had assets of more than $10,000,000, while the future wife had assets of approximately $170,000. The agreement was signed in the office of the husband’s attorney, in the presence of another attorney who was purportedly representing the wife.
At the time of the marriage, the wife, who had a background in marketing works of fine art to corporations, had recently opened an art gallery in California. She closed this business and relocated to Pine Bush, New York, in order to reside with the husband in preparation for their marriage, and assist him in his business endeavors. These included real estate development, as well as breeding thoroughbred horses and managing polo ponies.
In October, 2010, within days of New York’s adoption of no-fault divorce, the husband commenced this action for divorce. There were no children of the marriage.
Now, in an October 15, 2014 decision in McKenna v. McKenna, the Second Department modified an order of Nassau County Supreme Court Justice Margaret C. Reilly that had granted a husband summary judgment motion declaring the parties’ prenuptial agreement to be valid and enforceable. Justice Reilly had also denied the wife’s motion for an award of pendente lite maintenance and counsel fees.
Holding that summary judgment was not warranted, the appellate court may have increased or changed the burden needed to uphold a prenuptial agreement; changing the role of a contract’s “merger clause.” That clause declares that no factual representations not specifically referenced in the contract may later be used to claim the contract was fraudulently induced. Typically, it is a shield used to protect the agreement from attack.
In McKenna, the Second Department suggests a merger clause may be used as a sword: preventing a court from learning the wife’s actual knowledge of the husband’s finances at the time the prenuptial agreement was entered. As that knowledge could only have come from representations of the husband, the merger clause would bar proof of such representations not referenced by the agreement.
The second of four decisions this month with an international flavor was also decided by New York County Supreme Court Justice Ellen Gesmer.
In M v. M, 2014 N.Y.Misc. Lexis 3201, decided July 3, 2014, Justice Gesmer again voided a marital agreement, this time applying the laws of Spain and the Dominican Republic.
On June 27, 2001, one year and five months before their marriage, the parties signed an Agreement in Madrid, Spain, that purported to govern the disposition of property in the event of marriage and divorce. As with the Agreement in J.R. (see yesterday’s blog post), it provided that the parties would marry in a system of absolute separation of property.
At the time of the Agreement, the wife, born in the Dominican Republic, had Italian citizenship and was a domiciliary of Spain. The Husband is a citizen of Spain.
The parties were married in the Dominican Republic on December 12, 2002. Their marriage certificate, and the certification issued by the Office of Vital Statistics from the local government district, so listed the husband as a Spanish citizen, domiciled in Spain, and the wife as an Italian citizen, domiciled in Spain.
The wife commenced this divorce action in New York in 2012. Seeking now to invalidate the Agreement, the wife alleged that she never read the Agreement before signing it, that no one else read it to her, and that no formalities, particularly an oral recitation of the Agreement, were conducted when it was signed. She claimed that the husband brought her to the office of his attorney, and asked her to sign an accounting document drafted by his attorney to help him protect assets from business dealings. She claimed she never saw the document before the evening she signed it, and never saw or discussed it with the husband again until he raised it after commencement of this action. The husband disputed the wife’s claimed lack of awareness of the contents and significance of the Agreement.
The failure of a prenuptial agreement to specify that earnings during the marriage were separate propertywarranted a breach-of-contract recovery as part of a distribution on divorce when those earnings used to pay sparate liabilities. So held Supreme Court New York County Justice Laura E. Drager in her January 15, 2014 decision in R.B. v. M.I (New York Law Journal published decision).
Once again, the focus of the court’s attention was on the import of a prenuptial provision that limited marital property to that held jointly by the parties.
In Zinter v. Zinter, Saratoga County Supreme Court Justice Thomas D. Nolan, Jr., last month held it was unconscionable for a prenuptial agreement to give the husband power to control whether earnings and other after-marriage acquired property would be placed into joint or indiviual accounts, and thus marital or separate property (see, my March 17, 2014 blog post).
Here, the Justice Drager held that whether pproperty was owned jointly or individually at the commencement of the divorce action did not end the inquiry, if a breach of contract claim arising during the marriage is viable.
After surgically excising eight words, Saratoga County Supreme Court Justice Thomas D. Nolan, Jr., in his February 7, 2014 decision in Zinter v. Zinter, upheld the balance of a prenuptial agreement. Those words had given the husband the unconscionable power to control whether earnings and other after-marriage acquired property would be placed into joint or indiviual accounts, and thus marital or separate property.
In this divorce action, the parties were married on December 23, 2005. The wife was then 29 years old, a music teacher with a Master’s degree, and reported a net worth of $71,500.00. The husband was then 35 years old, a college graduate, and an officer and part owner of his family-owned and operated business, with a reported net worth of approximately $2.7 million.
The husband had retained an attorney to prepare a prenuptial agreement. In November 2005, both the prospective husband and prospective wife met with that attorney to review the proposed agreement. At the time, the wife was not represented by counsel. The husband’s attorney provided the wife with the names of three attorneys experienced in matrimonial law. Shortly thereafter, she retained one of them, with whom the wife met three times before the agreement was signed four days before the marriage.

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