Congratulations on your upcoming wedding in the state with the best snow on Earth. Before hitting the slopes, attending the Sundance Film Festival, or hiking through one of the many national parks, make sure you get your prenuptial agreement ironed out.
Utah courts refer to a prenuptial agreement as a “premarital agreement,” but they both mean the same thing– a contract drafted between two future spouses before marriage. A premarital agreement is only valid after the marriage takes place.
The Utah premarital agreement statute and Utah state case law outline the rules and requirements for a valid agreement. A Utah premarital agreement may include alimony modifications, property division, inheritance, debt, matters regarding life insurance, choice of law, and more. However, a Utah prenup cannot limit child support or determine child custody.
For a Utah prenup to be considered valid (pursuant to Utah Code Title 30, Chapter 8 ), you should consider the following:
Note: Utah courts require four elements to be true to render a prenup unenforceable :
(1) fraudulent execution,
(2) nondisclosure of financial obligations,
(3) no express waiver of disclosure, and
(4) no independent knowledge of the financial obligations
( Keyes v. Keyes , 351 P.3d 90, 96 (Utah App. 2015))
Financial disclosure is a legal requirement for Utah prenuptial agreements.
Both fiancés must disclose their income, assets, and debt for a prenup to be considered valid and enforceable in Utah.
Financial disclosure is done via a “financial schedule,” which is a snapshot of all of your income, assets, debt, and future inheritance. This financial schedule should be attached to the end of your prenuptial agreement.
In Utah, according to Chapter 30, Chapter 8, Section 6 , it is possible to waive financial disclosure (in writing) which confirms that you and your fiancé understand and agree that you have each received sufficient supporting documentation for all of your financial disclosure details and that you are comfortable with the level of disclosure received. However, if not done properly, it could jeopardize your entire agreement. HelloPrenup recommends not waiving financial disclosure.
The short answer is no. A prenup lawyer is NOT a prerequisite to getting a valid prenuptial agreement in Utah. However, hiring a prenup lawyer can be beneficial to helping you follow the prenup laws of the state. For example, there are other requirements you have to meet to have a valid and enforceable prenup in Utah, such as putting it in writing, signing it, and providing reasonable financial disclosure. (See Utah Code Section 30-8-6 for more details). Having a lawyer can help you make sure you are meeting all of those requirements for creating a valid and enforceable prenup.
How do I even know if Utah is the right state for me? For instance, you may be confused if:
The general rule of thumb is to choose the state in which you plan to reside as a married couple. Your choice of state (a.k.a., “choice of law”) determines which state law will determine the enforcement of your prenup in the event of a divorce.
Example scenario:
Let’s say you live in Utah now, but you and your future spouse may one day move to Florida or maybe Hawaii. So, should your prenup be for Utah, Florida, or Hawaii?
If you are 100% sure that you’re moving to Florida right away and you plan to live in Florida as a married couple forever, Florida seems like the right choice of law.
But if you are not sure whether you will move, when you will move, or where you will move, you should contact a licensed attorney to learn about the laws in those states and which state makes sense for you.
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In Utah, spousal support is called “alimony, ” and it is the financial support ordered by a court to be paid from one ex-spouse to the other (the more financially disadvantaged spouse).
The payment of alimony may be awarded during the divorce proceedings or after the divorce is final. For example, alimony may only be awarded during the divorce proceedings to allow the financially disadvantaged spouse time to “get back on their feet.”
How do you know if you will have to pay alimony (or if you will be able to receive alimony?) Well, a Utah judge will award alimony based on several factors, including if there is a financial need and the other spouse has the financial means to pay. The judge will look at other factors to determine whether alimony is appropriate, such as employment history, ability to work, the length of the marriage, whether one spouse has custody of children, whether one spouse contributed to the other spouse’s increase in skills, and more.
Don’t like the idea of alimony? You may include provisions in your prenuptial agreement limiting or eliminating alimony. (Spoiler alert: HelloPrenup offers alimony waiver clauses). Often times, the court will uphold provisions modifying alimony as long as they were executed properly. However, if the provision would force one spouse to receive public assistance, the court may ignore your condition regarding alimony and require alimony payment.
For more fine print, review Utah Code Section 30-3-5
Although you may never need to use this information, we think it is important to understand.
In Utah, there are three ways to terminate a marriage: annulment, legal separation, or divorce.
An annulment nullifies a marriage that was invalid from the beginning. For instance, if one party was too young to legally consent to marriage or if the marriage was between close relatives, it could be annulled.
Additionally, you can file for legal separation (referred to as “separate maintenance” in Utah), which does not dissolve the marriage but addresses issues such as child custody, property division, and support payments, similar to a divorce.
Only one spouse needs to start the divorce process. If one party decides to end the marriage, they have the right to proceed with the divorce, even if the other spouse does not agree. If the non-filing spouse does not respond or participate in the proceedings, a default judgment will be issued, and the divorce will continue as planned.
No-Fault/Fault Divorce When getting a divorce, you can either file under “no-fault” or “fault.” If you file under no-fault it means you do not have to prove that the other party “did something wrong” but instead cite “irreconcilable differences” to obtain a divorce. Fault divorces are when you can allege that the other person did something wrong, such as adultery, abuse, habitual drunkenness, etc.
Utah can be viewed as a hybrid “no-fault/fault” divorce state because you can file for either no-fault or fault divorce in Utah. Because it is easier, cheaper, and faster to go the no-fault divorce route, most divorces nowadays in Utah are filed on a no fault basis.
>>For the entire fine print, please review Utah Code Title 30, Chapter 3, Section 1.
La Juana and Clay met via newspaper ad in 1986. Clay flew his own airplane out to meet La Juana in Texas, where she worked as a nurse’s aide for $3.50 an hour. Clay asked her to marry him and move back to Utah just five days later. He told her she could quit her job because he would take care of her. La Juana agreed, and they flew back to Utah and lived happily ever after until Clay, unfortunately, died in an airplane crash. At the time of Clay’s death, he had about $1.5 million in assets, including airplanes, commercial real estate, cars, retirement funds, and investment accounts.
Before the marriage, Clay presented a prenup to La Juana. The prenup stated that if they were still married at the time of his death, she would receive 50% of his estate. Clay’s only other heirs were his nieces and nephews. La Juana typed up the prenup herself and signed it. She was never provided any of his financial information before signing the prenup, but nonetheless, she signed it.
After Clay’s death, La Juana requested to become the sole heir of his estate. Clay’s nieces and nephews had other plans; they also requested to receive their part of the estate. La Juana claimed that the prenup should be thrown out because she was coerced to sign it. She claimed that she had to move from Texas to Utah and quit her job to marry Clay and that she could not marry him without signing the prenup. The court disagreed with La Juana and said that she voluntarily signed the agreement of her own free will. She understood the contents of the contract and agreed to be bound by its terms. Thus, the prenuptial agreement was valid and enforceable.
The moral of the story is that if you want to throw out a prenup based on coercion, you must prove that you did not sign the prenup voluntarily. You need to claim more than just, “I moved to a different state for my spouse, quit my job, and had no other choice but to sign the prenup.”
A 2015 case from a Court of Appeals in Utah discussed what fraud *doesn’t* look like when executing a prenuptial agreement. Husband and Wife executed a prenup that required all the property owned before the marriage to remain separate. While the couple did not amass many assets during the marriage, the husband’s most significant interest in his family’s landscaping business was the most significant asset.
At the time of the divorce, Wife wanted to throw out the prenup to allow access to Husband’s premarital assets, such as the interest in the family business. She claimed that the prenup was fraudulently executed because Husband did not disclose his finances, and she never had knowledge of the worth of his business and other minor assets.
The court disagreed with Wife and declared that fraudulence in a prenuptial agreement is not determined by whether there was financial disclosure or not. A fraudulently executed prenup is determined by falsely representing material information knowingly. In this case, Wife had waived her right to disclosure, so financial disclosure was not actually required here.
The moral of the story is? Always include a financial disclosure in your prenup (or a waiver of such), and don’t knowingly misrepresent material information in your prenup otherwise, it will be thrown out for fraud!
Husband and Wife married in 1991 in California, with the Husband, a semi-retired multi-millionaire, insisting on a prenuptial agreement to protect his assets. They selected California as their choice of law for the prenup.
Eventually, they moved to Utah, where the Husband invested $12.8 million to develop the Sorrel River Ranch Resort and earned $1.5 million from another venture. They lived a luxurious lifestyle for several years. Then, in 2005, the Husband filed for divorce.
The Wife argued for community property rights (California law) so she could get 50% of his business earnings, not just his salary. She believed the term “earnings” in the prenup should encompass anything received as an equivalent for services. The prenup stated that any earnings should be split 50/50, which is why she was arguing for this term to have a broader scope. The court ultimately found the Wife’s interpretation of “earnings” conflicted with the entirety of the prenup and affirmed the agreement’s intent to protect the Husband’s assets.
In other words? The prenup was analyzed as a whole, and the court looked at the general intent of the contract (i.e., the husband insisting on the prenup to protect his assets). The court noted that Utah law construes prenups “as a whole in order to harmonize its various provisions” and to ensure that the terms are “interpreted in light of the remaining provisions of the prenup.”
