Also known as: marital property agreements · marital-property agreement · property settlement agreement · marital settlement agreement
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
An agreement between spouses that complies with statutory formalities and permits them to classify property as individual or marital and to determine rights upon dissolution.
Matthew Martinez and Melissa Mills signed a marital property agreement that listed specific brokerage accounts as Matthew's alone. When they later divorced, the court treated those accounts as individual property under the agreement rather than dividing them as marital assets. The designation prevented any claim by Melissa to the accounts.
Mustafa Mahmoud and Maurice Marshall entered a marital property agreement after a fire damaged their jointly owned warehouse. The agreement provided that any insurance proceeds for the structure would remain Maurice's individual property. When the insurer paid the claim, the funds were classified as individual rather than marital.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
Marco Marquez and Malcolm McKinley included a marital property agreement in their divorce decree that reclassified future earnings to satisfy child-support duties. The court enforced the reclassification because the agreement expressly addressed disposition of property upon dissolution. The arrangement satisfied the statutory requirements for a valid marital property agreement.
No. The statute provides that a marital property agreement is enforceable without consideration.
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The agreement must be a document signed by both spouses. No additional formalities such as witnesses or counsel are required by the statute.
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Yes. The agreement may designate property as the individual property of one spouse, including recoveries for damage to property.
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Yes. The statute focuses on the existence of a signed document and does not require independent counsel or disclosure beyond the agreement itself.
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…existing case law from the Court of Appeals suggests that an obligation to hold ex-spouse harmless on debt to third party under property settlement agreement was not discharged despite apparent lack of intervention in bankruptcy proceeding by ex-spouse. See McDonald v. McDonald , 882 S.W.2d 134, 135-36 (Ky.App. 1994). [^maj-20]: 151 S.W.3d at…