2025 Guide to Uniform Premarital and Marital Agreements Act: Costs & Key Insights
Explore how the Uniform Premarital and Marital Agreements Act standardizes prenups and marital contracts across 26 states, ensuring fair financial terms and legal clarity for couples.
Julia Kagan, a seasoned financial and consumer journalist and former senior editor at Investopedia, provides expert insights.
What is the Uniform Premarital and Marital Agreements Act (UPMAA)?
Enacted by 26 U.S. states, the Uniform Premarital and Marital Agreements Act (UPMAA), created by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws in 1983, brings uniformity to prenuptial and marital agreements. This legislation empowers couples to select which state’s marital laws will govern their agreements, offering predictability and legal consistency.
Key Highlights
- UPMAA governs when and how prenuptial agreements are enforced across multiple states.
- It allows parties to choose applicable state laws concerning property division, spousal support, and other marital financial matters.
- Enforcement requires voluntary consent from all parties and ensures spousal support waivers do not lead to government dependency.
How UPMAA Shapes Marital Agreements
The act encourages couples to craft mutually agreed-upon financial terms with safeguards to ensure fairness. States conduct a fairness review based on the agreement's circumstances, refusing enforcement if it jeopardizes one party financially. UPMAA also clarifies burden of proof and conditions under which rights may be waived or altered during divorce or death.
Its purpose is to provide courts with flexible tools for family law decisions while giving couples confidence that their premarital or postnuptial agreements are legally sound and enforceable.
Notably, UPMAA treats postnuptial agreements with the same rigor as premarital ones, though some states impose stricter standards on postnuptial contracts.
Prenuptial Agreements Under UPMAA
Typically, prenups address property division, spousal support, and child custody in divorce scenarios, sometimes including clauses about asset forfeiture due to adultery. They are often sought by the party at greater financial risk, especially in community property states where assets acquired during marriage are equally shared.
Couples may select any state where one partner resides or plans to reside, or where they marry, provided that state has adopted UPMAA. This selection ensures the agreement benefits from comprehensive statutes governing estate planning, asset division, alimony, and custody, unlike states relying primarily on case law which may offer less predictability.
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