This week brings more coverage of the Ansin decision in the Business West journal. We’ve been running many stories on the Ansin v. Craven decision, including William Levine’s postnuptial legal overview and other articles related to marital and postmarital agreements.
In the Business West article, Springfield attorney Carla Newton outlines several specific criteria to provide guidance:
(1) each party must have had an opportunity to obtain separate legal counsel of his or her own choosing;
(2) the marital agreement must have been signed freely and voluntarily without any fraud or coercion;
(3) the marital agreement must contain a full disclosure of all assets with their approximate market value, a statement of each party’s approximate annual income, and, equally as important, disclosure of any significant future acquisitions or changes in income which are reasonably anticipated;
(4) the marital agreement must also contain a clear and explicit waiver of the right to a judicial determination of marital rights and asset distribution in the event that a divorce does take place at some point in the future; and
(5) the martial agreement must be evaluated to determine if the terms were fair and reasonable at the time of the execution of the agreement and are still fair and reasonable at the time of the divorce.
The Ansin v. Craven decision is published here.
Learn more about postnuptial agreements.
