Can You Get a Prenup After Marriage?

1. Can You Get a Prenup After Marriage?

A married couple cannot sign a prenup, and a married couple can sign a postnup. Florida’s statute defines a premarital agreement as an agreement between prospective spouses made in contemplation of marriage and effective on marriage, so an agreement signed after the wedding is a postnuptial agreement. People type “can you sign a prenup after marriage,” “can a prenup be done after marriage” and “can you get a prenup after getting married,” and the answer to all three is the postnup.

A common question I hear is, “Is a postnup as good as a prenup?” A postnup covers the same ground. A postnup is also the harder of the two to defend in court, because the spouses already owe each other fair dealing and the disclosure rule is stricter. The sections below show the differences.

2. Can You Sign a Prenup After Marriage? What a Postnup Can Do

A postnup can do each of these jobs.

• Keep a business or an inheritance separate. A business started during the marriage is marital property at divorce unless the spouses agree otherwise.
• Set the division of property at divorce. The default starts from an equal split, and the agreement can start somewhere else.
• Waive or set alimony. The agreement can name a sum, a formula or a waiver.
• Waive the surviving spouse’s claims at death. These include the 30 percent elective share, the intestate share, homestead rights, exempt property up to $20,000 in furniture plus two cars, and the family allowance of up to $18,000.
• Carry out the plan through a will, a trust or insurance. A postnup can also support Medicaid planning for a couple where one spouse needs long-term care.

Two traps sit behind these jobs. In Steffens v. Evans (Fla. 4th DCA 2011) a 2007 postnup waived “all rights,” and the Fourth District held that the waiver also renounced the wife’s gifts under the husband’s 2002 will, even though the couple never separated. A postnup can cancel a will gift one spouse wanted to keep. The second trap is the house. In Mendia v. Galvez (Fla. 3d DCA 2025) a 1998 postnup gave the home to the wife and the husband quitclaimed it to her, and neither document mentioned homestead, so neither waived his homestead rights. Her later quitclaim of the home to a third party, without his joinder, was void. In Weaver v. Hatfield (Fla. 1st DCA 2025) a deed that expressly assigned the marital and homestead interest worked as a waiver. A postnup that moves the house has to name homestead. I coordinate the will and the deed on the day the postnup is signed.

3. Can a Prenup Be Done After Marriage? What Florida Requires

A postnup has to clear four requirements, and the first three are the probate statute’s.

1. A signed writing before two witnesses. A waiver of any death-side right must be “signed by the waiving party in the presence of two subscribing witnesses.”
2. A fair disclosure. Each spouse must make “a fair disclosure to the other of that spouse’s estate” when the agreement is signed after the marriage. No disclosure is required for an agreement signed before the marriage.
3. No separate payment. The signing itself is enough consideration, whether before or after the wedding.
4. A pass under Casto at divorce. The Florida Supreme Court held in Casto v. Casto (1987) that a spouse may set aside an agreement by proving fraud, deceit, duress, coercion, misrepresentation or overreaching, or by proving the agreement was unfair or unreasonable and that the spouse did not know the other’s finances. The premarital agreement statute covers only agreements signed before marriage, so Casto governs a postnup signed at any date.

The disclosure row is the one that surprises people, because the agreement signed before the wedding is the one that feels riskier. In In re Estate of Shore (Fla. 4th DCA 1992) a widower refused every request for disclosure and signed a postnup meant to replace his prenup, and the postnup failed for lack of fair disclosure. Florida courts also treat spouses as fiduciaries toward each other until a divorce case is under way, as Kearney v. Kearney (Fla. 1st DCA 2013) said. Prenup versus postnup compares the two in more depth, and the postnup guide covers the drafting.

4. What If My Spouse Gives Me One Week to Sign a Postnup?

A one-week deadline is a fact that a Florida court weighs with the rest of the signing. A post on r/Marriage titled “My husband has given me 1 week to decide: postnup or divorce” drew 225 upvotes in October 2024, and readers of that thread know the feeling of a clock running while the financial picture stays blank. None of the postnup cases I read turned on a deadline alone. The ones that fell combined pressure with something else.

In Casto the wife of a shopping-center developer signed a postnup in 1977 for about $225,000, when the couple’s assets may have been worth $10 million. The husband refused to give her a financial statement. He threatened to blow up the house and pour Clorox over her clothes, and he steered her to a lawyer who went through the motions. The Florida Supreme Court set the agreement aside. Pressure, no financial picture and a lawyer in name only came together in one signing.

Four requests answer a deadline without refusing outright.

1. A written schedule of the other spouse’s assets, debts and income, with values.
2. A complete draft, delivered with enough time to read it. I tell clients to allow two to four weeks from the first draft to the signing.
3. Your own lawyer, who reads the agreement against Florida’s default rules before you sign.
4. A written answer to the question “what do I receive for what I give up?”

Spouses who intend the agreement to hold should want the same four things, because a signing without them is the one a judge reviews hardest.

5. Should I Refuse to Sign a Postnup?

A postnup is a contract, and Florida enforces it only when it was signed voluntarily after a fair disclosure, so nothing obliges a spouse to sign. The question still has a more useful answer than yes or no.

One of the most upvoted threads on this topic is titled “AITA for refusing to sign a prenup after marriage?” on r/AITAH, with 6,002 upvotes in January 2025 and 9,576 on its update. The poster described six years of marriage, three children, and a family business her husband opened with his father two years into the marriage. Her father-in-law wanted her to release any claim to it. She wrote that she would never ask for half and saw no reason to sign. Her instinct about trust is a human one. The legal fact underneath it is that a business started during the marriage is marital property at divorce, so the release would give up a claim worth real money, whatever she says today about what she would ask for.

Four things to ask for in place of a flat refusal are the disclosure schedule, the full draft, time with your own lawyer, and a term in return, such as a payment that grows with the length of the marriage. Two things cannot be taken in any postnup. The right to temporary support and legal fees while a divorce is pending is not conclusively waivable under Belcher v. Belcher (Fla. 1972) and Khan v. Khan (Fla. 4th DCA 2012), and a child’s right to support is untouched. A review of the agreement is a flat fee from $750.

6. Can a Postnup Replace a Prenup?

A postnup can replace a prenup, because Florida allows a premarital agreement to be amended or revoked after the wedding by a written agreement signed by both spouses. The replacement needs its own fair disclosure. When it fails, the earlier agreement returns, which is what the Fourth District held in Estate of Shore. How long a prenup lasts covers amendment and revival in full.

7. How Much Does a Postnup Cost in Florida?

A postnuptial agreement drafted for one spouse is a flat fee from $2,950 at this firm, and a review of an agreement the other side drafted is a flat fee from $750. These fees are honored for 90 days from October 6, 2026. Government costs are additional and passed through at cost. What a Florida prenup costs explains what drives the numbers.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common Situations

The business that took off. A husband opened a company two years into a ten-year marriage, and it now earns $600,000 a year. His family asks his wife to sign a release of any claim. The release gives up a share of a marital asset, and her lawyer asks for the schedule before the conversation about price.

The inheritance on the way. A wife expects $1.2 million from her mother and wants it to stay hers if the marriage ends. A postnup signed before the money arrives is cheaper than a tracing fight afterward.

The couple who skipped the prenup. Both spouses brought children from earlier marriages and signed nothing. Ten years in, they want each child protected. A postnup with two witnesses and a coordinated will does the work, and the consult covers what each spouse is giving up.

Sources of Law

• Fla. Stat. §732.702(1) to (3) (waiver before two subscribing witnesses; fair disclosure for agreements signed after marriage; no consideration needed); §§732.2065, 732.401, 732.402, 732.403 and Fla. Const. art. X, §4(c) (elective share, homestead, exempt property, family allowance).
• Fla. Stat. §61.079(1), (2)(a), (6), (7) (premarital agreements only; amendment or revocation by signed writing); Fla. Stat. §61.075 (marital and nonmarital property).
• Casto v. Casto, 508 So. 2d 330 (Fla. 1987); Belcher v. Belcher, 271 So. 2d 7 (Fla. 1972); Kearney v. Kearney, 129 So. 3d 381 (Fla. 1st DCA 2013); In re Estate of Shore, 605 So. 2d 951 (Fla. 4th DCA 1992); Steffens v. Evans, 70 So. 3d 758 (Fla. 4th DCA 2011); Khan v. Khan, 79 So. 3d 99 (Fla. 4th DCA 2012).
• Mendia v. Galvez, No. 3D24-0798 (Fla. 3d DCA Aug. 27, 2025); Weaver v. Hatfield, No. 1D2024-2423 (Fla. 1st DCA Nov. 19, 2025). Described from the project reading list; the opinions are on CourtListener.
• Statutes and opinions retrieved 2026-10-07. Reddit titles and scores read from the public archive on 2026-10-07.

The Postnup Signed Over Two Lawyers’ Advice

In my practice, the version of this that lands on my desk is almost always the one that was signed fast.

The wife in Kearney signed a postnup in July 2006 that gave up her interest in the family’s IBM-reseller company. The company was later valued at about $48 million, and she received $3 million in installments. Her husband told her the company needed a recapitalization. He understated his income and left out about $6.5 million in receivables. He also warned her ahead of time that lawyers would tell her not to sign, and both of her lawyers did exactly that. She signed anyway. The First District in 2013 let stand the ruling setting the agreement aside for overreaching and nondisclosure, and it rejected the argument that she had ratified the agreement by keeping the installments.

I have a few take-home points.

The first is that inadequate or false disclosure is the largest group of failures in the postnup cases I read, and in Kearney the omitted receivables alone were $6.5 million.

The second is that two lawyers advising against signing did not protect the husband, and his advance warning about what they would say is the detail I remember most. I treat it as the reason never to coach the other side about its own lawyers.

Practice pointer. Give the other spouse a complete schedule with values, give the time to read it, and let that spouse’s lawyer say whatever the lawyer will say.

Avoid telling your spouse what the lawyer will advise or that the advice can be ignored.

An honest limit belongs here. Kearney turned on its own facts and on findings the trial judge made, so the case does not mean that every rushed postnup fails, and no Florida decision in my research holds that a deadline alone voids one.

Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., admitted in Florida since 2012. The case above is a published opinion in other parties’ matter, not a matter this firm handled, and it predicts nothing about yours.

Updated on October 7, 2026. Reviewed by Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., Fla. Bar No. 99502. General information about Florida law, not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created. Each spouse should have independent counsel. Do not send confidential information until we have agreed to represent you.