Is a Prenup Worth It?

1. Is a Prenup Worth It? The Arithmetic

A Florida prenup commonly costs from a couple of thousand dollars to the mid five figures for complex estates, and each person should have a lawyer. We quote a flat fee at the consult. Set that against what Florida’s default rules move between spouses.

Where any line of that table would go somewhere you do not want, a prenup is a small price for deciding it yourselves. Where every line lands where you would send it anyway, the agreement buys less. What happens if you don’t sign a prenup covers each default in detail.

2. When a Prenup Is Worth It

• A second marriage with children from a first. Two wills that each leave everything to their own children do not stop the survivor from claiming 30 percent of the other’s estate. Only a signed spousal waiver does. See second-marriage prenups.
• A business. Growth in a business during the marriage is marital in a divorce, and the business is part of the estate at death. See prenups for business owners.
• An expected inheritance. An inheritance starts out separate in a divorce and is fully exposed to the elective share at death. See how a prenup works at death.
• A large gap in assets or debt. When one person brings $1 million in savings and the other brings student loans, the default rules can surprise both.
• A home you want to leave to your children. Florida’s homestead rules protect a surviving spouse in the house unless the spouse waived those rights.

3. When a Prenup Is Probably Not Worth It

Some couples do not need one, and nobody should buy an agreement they have no use for. A prenup is often not worth the cost when the two of you have similar, modest assets, neither has children from another relationship, no business or inheritance is on the horizon, and you both want the survivor to inherit everything anyway.

Florida’s defaults already lean that way for a first marriage. If you die without a will and all your children are also your spouse’s children, your spouse takes the whole estate. A will and a durable power of attorney may serve those couples better than a prenup. The will-based plan is flat fee from $1,200 for one person and $1,950 for a couple, posted and honored for at least 90 days from September 2026. Do I need a prenup? has a checklist.

Circumstances change. A couple who skips the prenup can sign a postnuptial agreement later, when a business or an inheritance arrives.

4. Is a Prenup Bad? The Real Downsides

A prenup has real costs, and they are worth naming plainly.

1. Two sets of fees. Each person should have their own lawyer. Florida does not require it, and the separate review is what protects the agreement from a later claim that the signature was not informed.
2. An uncomfortable conversation. Talking about divorce and death before a wedding is hard. Couples who do it well usually find the conversation about money was overdue.
3. An agreement that ages. Terms that fit at 30 can fit badly at 50, after children, a business or a move. Florida lets a couple amend or revoke a prenup only by a written agreement signed by both, so updating takes a deliberate step.
4. A real loss for the spouse with less. The spouse who waives the elective share and homestead may be giving up hundreds of thousands of dollars. Florida requires no financial disclosure for that waiver in an agreement signed before the wedding, so the protection for that spouse is a separate lawyer and a disclosure schedule requested in writing.

What a prenup does not do is predict a divorce. Most marriages end at a death, and that is where most agreements do their work.

5. Should You Get a Prenup? The Question Reddit Keeps Asking

Search the question and the threads come back arguing about trust, romance and divorce rates. The threads miss the Florida-specific half of the answer.

In Florida, a spouse who dies leaves a survivor with claims a will cannot remove, including 30 percent of the elective estate and rights in the home. A prenup is the main way to change those claims. So the useful question is who you want to inherit if you die married, and whether Florida’s answer matches yours.

If the answer is your spouse, and Florida agrees, the case for a prenup rests on divorce alone, and for many first marriages that case is thin. If the answer is your children from a first marriage, a family business partner or a parent’s intended heirs, the case is strong whatever the divorce odds are.

6. Is It Bad to Ask for a Prenup? How to Raise It

Asking is not an accusation. The conversations that go well share three features.

1. Start with the specific concern. My children from my first marriage need to inherit the house, or my parents’ business has to stay in the family, is easier to hear than a general request for protection.
2. Start early. Raise it months before the wedding. An agreement signed in the final week invites an argument that it was not signed voluntarily, which is one of the grounds Florida allows for setting it aside. See what makes a prenup invalid.
3. Offer something too. Many agreements provide for the less wealthy spouse, with a life insurance policy, a sum at death or a right to stay in the home for a period. A provision for the survivor often makes the waiver easier to accept.

Each of you should then talk to your own lawyer before anything is drafted. How to get a prenup in Florida lays out the steps.

What It Costs

A prenup or postnup is a flat fee quoted at consult, because the price depends on what has to be valued and disclosed and on whether a business, a trust interest or a blended family is involved. What a Florida prenup costs explains what drives the number. Government costs are additional and passed through at cost.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common Situations

The couple in their late twenties. Two teachers with similar savings, no children and no family business want the survivor to have everything. A prenup would change little for them, and wills naming each other do the real work.

The widow marrying again at 66. She owns a paid-off house in Sarasota and wants it to go to her three children. Without a waiver, her new husband would hold homestead rights in it and a 30 percent claim to the rest. For her, the prenup is worth many times its cost.

The founder whose company is two years old. The business is worth little today and could be worth a great deal in ten years, and the growth during the marriage would be marital in a divorce. The agreement is cheapest to sign now, while the value is low.

Sources of Law

• Fla. Stat. §732.2035 and §732.2065 (elective estate; 30 percent); §732.401 (descent of homestead, life estate or elective one-half interest); §732.402 (exempt property, furniture up to $20,000 and two motor vehicles); §732.403 (family allowance up to $18,000); §732.102 (spouse takes the entire intestate estate where all descendants are also the spouse’s and the spouse has no other descendants); §732.702 (waiver before or after marriage before two subscribing witnesses; no disclosure required before marriage). Fla. Const. art. X, §4(c).
• Fla. Stat. §61.075(1) and (6)(a)1.b. (equal-distribution premise; enhancement of nonmarital assets from marital efforts is marital). Fla. Stat. §61.079(6) (amendment or revocation only by written agreement signed by both) and (7)(a) (grounds for non-enforcement).
• Hartwell v. Blasingame, 564 So. 2d 543 (Fla. 2d DCA 1990) (surviving spouse’s waiver of homestead in a prenuptial agreement valid under §732.702; the decedent’s adult daughter could not override it, and the home passed under the will). Opinion read in full. Accord City National Bank of Florida v. Tescher, 578 So. 2d 701 (Fla. 1991).
• Statutes and opinions retrieved October 2, 2026.

When I Tell People a Prenup Is Worth It

I will tell you when you do not need me, because I have also seen people buy planning they had no use for. The cases where a prenup is worth it look different, and I see cases where the agreement did exactly what it was signed to do nine years later.

A widower in Florida wrote a will in 1977 leaving his house to his former son-in-law, the father of his grandchildren, and if the son-in-law died first, to those grandchildren. Two years later, at 78, he married again. He and his new wife had both been married before, and they signed a prenup saying they did not want to disturb the plans already made for their estates. Each waived homestead, the family allowance, the elective share and every other right in the other’s estate. A lawyer prepared it, and it was witnessed and notarized.

He died in 1988 at 87, still married. His widow honored the agreement. His only daughter, whom the will left out, argued that the house was homestead and had to pass to her because her father was survived by a spouse. The appellate court held in 1990 that the widow’s waiver was valid, that an adult child cannot override it, and that the house went where the will sent it.

I have a few take-home points.

The first is that without the prenup, the plan he made in 1977 would have failed. A Florida home cannot be left by will away from a surviving spouse, and if it passes by the default rules a spouse takes a life estate with the rest going to descendants. The agreement he signed at 78 is the only reason his will worked at 87.

The second is that the agreement had to be good enough to survive someone who never signed it. His widow did not challenge it. His daughter did, nine years after the signing, and the lawyer, the witnesses and the notary are what made the agreement hard to attack.

Practice pointer. Measure a prenup by what your estate plan does with it and without it. If your will leaves the house or the bulk of the estate to someone other than your spouse, the plan depends on a waiver, and the waiver is the part worth paying for.

Avoid deciding against a prenup on divorce statistics alone. The agreement in this case never touched a divorce, and it decided where the house went.

An honest limit belongs here. A homestead waiver frees the home only where no minor child survives, because the constitution protects a minor child separately and a spouse cannot waive a child’s rights. Whether a prenup is worth it for you depends on your family as it will be, which is a judgment we make together rather than a rule.

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 2, 2026. Reviewed by Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., Fla. Bar No. 99502. Attorney Kevin Klagge represents families, businesses, and international clients in estate and tax planning, business structuring, and international law, with a focus on Florida legal tools. He litigates estate and business issues in court. 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.