Iowa Prenuptial Agreements
Planning a wedding in the heartland of Iowa? Amidst the excitement and anticipation, it’s wise to consider a prenup. Think of it as a safety net for your future together, ensuring that your marriage remains as strong and secure as your love for the Iowa State Fair. Let’s explore all things prenups in Iowa so you can start your life together with clarity and confidence.
Iowa prenup basics
In Iowa, prenups (or “premarital agreements,” as they say in Iowa) are contracts that soon-to-be spouses sign before getting married. The laws on prenups in Iowa are governed by Iowa’s Uniform Premarital Agreement Act (IUPAA) and case law. The rules around how a prenup should be created and enforced can be found in the IUPAA.
Prenups outline certain matters between the couple, such as property ownership, division, marital expenses and budgeting, pet custody, tax filing, and much more. They are emotional documents as much as they are financial ones because they help couples align on certain life goals, such as retirement and bank account management.
What makes an Iowa prenup enforceable?
So… what exactly do you need to do to make a prenup stand up in court in Iowa? Well, the answer lies in Iowa’s Uniform Premarital Agreement Act. Let’s discuss.
Requirements:
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- Prenup must be in writing (no oral agreements)
- Prenup must be signed by both parties.
- Both spouses must enter into the agreement voluntarily.
- Both spouses must provide “fair and reasonable” financial disclosure to one another. This means providing the values of all assets, debts, income, and future inheritances.
- The prenup must not include terms against public policy or against the law.
- The prenup must not include terms about spousal support, child support, child custody, or attorney’s fees for child support/custody.
Avoid these things:
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- The prenup must not be entered into under any level of coercion, duress, or undue influence.
- The prenup must not lack “fair and reasonable” financial disclosure.
- The prenup must not include terms against public policy or against the law.
- The prenup must not include terms about spousal support, child support, child custody, or attorney’s fees for child support/custody.
- The prenup must not be unconscionable.
What can you include in your Iowa prenup?
Let’s discuss what you can and cannot put into your Iowa prenup. This is important because putting in clauses that are against policy in Iowa can get them stricken or entirely thrown out. Plus, it can lead to lengthy litigation.
What you may include in your prenup:
- Property rights and obligations of each spouse
- The right to buy, sell, use, transfer, exchange, abandon, lease, consume, expend, assign, create a security interest in, mortgage, encumber, dispose of, or otherwise manage and control property
- Property division upon divorce or death
- The making of a will, trust, or other arrangement
- Life insurance
- Choice of law clauses
- Any other matter, including the personal rights and obligations of the parties, not in violation of public policy or a statute imposing a criminal penalty.
However, the same statute and Iowa case law also explicitly states what you cannot include in your prenup:
- You may not include clauses restricting spousal support
- You may not include clauses about child support
- You may not include clauses about child custody
- You may not include attorney’s fees waiver of attorney fees related to child or spousal support issues or child custody issues (In re Marriage of Erpelding, 917 N.W.2d 235 (2018)).
- You may not include any matter in violation of the law or public policy
As you can see, the world is your oyster as long as you don’t touch on spousal support, child custody, child support, or any other matter that is against the law or public policy.
Iowa’s unique rule: You cannot include provisions about spousal support in your prenup
Only three states prohibit including provisions regarding spousal support in a prenup, and Iowa is one of them. This means you cannot limit, modify, or eliminate either spouse’s right to receive spousal support in a divorce. Spousal support is the payment from one ex-spouse to the other during or after a divorce proceeding. The reason for this, as explained by the Iowa Supreme Court:
“First, the public interest in ensuring the financially dependent spouse has support outweighs the freedom to waive alimony by contract because the need for support is impossible to predict, and second, a financially dependent spouse should not have to remain in a marriage solely because leaving the marriage would deprive that spouse of support.”.
In plain English? Iowa says the future is impossible to predict, and one spouse may need financial support one day. And Iowa’s public policy seeks to ensure spouses are financially taken care of in a divorce, as they believe it to be more important than upholding a contract between a couple.
What are the default laws on spousal support in Iowa?
Given that you cannot waive or modify spousal support in your Iowa prenup, what can you expect in terms of spousal support possibilities? Well, there are several criteria that a judge may consider when deciding whether or not to order spousal support:
- The length of the marriage (generally, marriages 20+ years warrant serious consideration).
- The age and physical and emotional health of the spouses.
- The distribution of property
- The educational level of each spouse at the time of marriage and at the time the action is commenced.
- The earning capacity of the party seeking spousal support (educational background, training, employment skills, work experience, length of absence from the job market, responsibilities for children under either an award of custody or physical care and the time and expense necessary to acquire sufficient education or training to enable the party to find appropriate employment).
- The feasibility of the party seeking maintenance becoming self-supporting at a standard of living reasonably comparable to that enjoyed during the marriage and the length of time necessary to achieve this goal.
- The tax consequences to each party.
- Other factors the court may determine to be relevant in an individual case.
What you should takeaway from this is that Iowa courts have plenty of discretion in determining whether spousal support should be awarded and how much. It will be determined on a case-by-case basis and you cannot change the potential outcome with a prenup.
Do I need an attorney for my Iowa prenup?
Having a prenup attorney is not required for a valid and enforceable Iowa prenup. However, having the opportunity to get one, if you want one, is. Both parties need the opportunity to get a lawyer but don’t necessarily need to actually hire one.
The Supreme Court of Iowa explicitly addressed this question in 2008 when it dealt with a divorcing couple arguing over the validity of their prenup. The ex-wife argued it was unconscionable for several reasons, including the fact that her ex-husband was an attorney and she did not have a lawyer representing her. However, the Court disagreed with the ex-wife in this case. She had plenty of opportunity to consult with a lawyer if she wanted one (her ex urged her to get one, yet she refused). Even though the ex-husband presented the agreement 10 days before the wedding, this Court said that was plenty of time to get a lawyer. Furthermore, the Supreme Court of Iowa explicitly stated that “legal representation is not a condition of enforceability under [Iowa’s Uniform Premarital Agreement Act].”
What are the default laws on property division in Iowa?
Without a prenup, Iowa courts aim to divide your property fairly (which means it may not necessarily be 50/50). They’ll consider things like how long you were married, what each of you owned before the marriage, and how much each person contributed – and that includes housework and childcare. Iowa courts will also look at your age, health, education, earning potential, and whether one of you helped the other get ahead career-wise.
If there are kids, the court wants to make sure they have a stable home, so they might let the parent with custody stay in the family house for a while. They’ll also think about any support payments and things like pensions or retirement accounts.
Generally, inherited property or gifts stay with the person who got them. For example, if you receive a lump sum of cash when Great Aunt Jo dies, it’s typically yours to keep and not be divided by a court in a divorce. However– if it would be really unfair to the other spouse or the kids not to divide it up, the court can do that, too.
The bottom line? Iowa judges have broad discretion to decide how to split up your property based on the circumstances of your unique situation.
How to end a marriage in Iowa
In Iowa, to file for a divorce, you generally need to have lived in the state for the past year. However, there’s an exception: if your spouse lives in Iowa and you can personally serve them with the divorce papers, there’s no residency requirement for you. Further, there is a 90-day waiting period once the divorce is filed before a court can grant a divorce (unless it’s an emergency situation).
The only grounds for divorce in Iowa is a “breakdown of the marriage” with “no reasonable likelihood that the marriage can be preserved.”. This means neither spouse can argue the other “did something wrong,” such as adultery or abandonment.
Important Iowa case law
Case law is basically the history of how courts have interpreted and applied laws in the past. Lawyers use case law to help figure out how the law might apply to their client’s current situations. Let’s dive into some important prenup case law in Iowa to understand how courts treat prenups there.
You can’t claim buyer’s remorse to get out of a prenup in Iowa
Randall and Teresa, both entering their second marriages, discussed protecting Randall’s assets for his children from a previous marriage. They agreed on a prenup drafted by Randall (he was an attorney). Despite Randall’s encouragement to have the prenup reviewed by her own attorney, Teresa didn’t seek additional legal counsel, and they signed the agreement. Later, when their marriage ended, Randall wanted to enforce the prenup, but Teresa argued it was involuntary and unconscionable (overly unfair). The court disagreed with her.
The court’s ruling
The court explained that the agreement was not signed involuntarily because Teresa did not show that there was any duress or undue influence shown in executing the agreement. She could’ve canceled the wedding, and she also knew that Randall wouldn’t remarry without a prenuptial agreement.
Furthermore, the agreement’s terms were balanced and reasonable, and Teresa had ample time (10 days) to consider it and seek legal counsel if she desired. Coupled with her education and intelligence, these factors eliminated any concerns about conscionability of the prenup.
The bottom line? The prenup was upheld–and the court emphasized that you can’t just claim buyer’s remorse to get out of your prenup. There needs to be substantial evidence that the agreement was made under duress, undue influence, or unconscionable (meaning it shocked the conscience of the court).
You can’t waive attorney’s fees for child support or child custody in your Iowa prenup
Husband and wife signed a prenup five days before their wedding. The prenup included a clause that said (in essence) that neither party shall have the right to attorney’s fees and expenses upon a divorce. During the divorce proceedings, the parties litigated child support and custody, and the wife then asked for attorney’s fees for this. The husband argued the prenup did not require him to pay her attorney’s fees. The wife argued this was against public policy.
The result? The court agreed with the wife that you cannot waive the right to receive attorney’s fees for matters regarding child support or child custody in a prenuptial agreement. Why? Because it is Iowa’s policy to protect children, and allowing a couple to waive attorney’s fees for child support or custody discourages them from pursuing litigation in their children’s best interest.
The bottom line? You may waive attorneys fees for matters related to other types of litigation, such as attorneys fees for litigating the prenup itself, but NOT regarding attorneys fees for child support or custody.
In re Marriage of Erpelding, 917 N.W.2d 235, 237 (Iowa 2018)
A 2024 Iowa Supreme Court case on prenup amendments
In this case, a couple had a prenuptial agreement stating that each spouse waived their statutory elective share, but they also agreed that each would take one-third of the other’s net real property interests at the time of death. (“waiving elective share” means giving up the right to claim a portion of the other’s estate upon death).
After 24 years of marriage, they amended their prenup. The new agreement, which they called a “partial revocation,” kept the elective share but removed the right to one-third of the other’s property. In short, the wife would get less when her husband died with this new amendment.
The wife received some immediate financial benefits in exchange for signing this new agreement. However, after the husband passed away, she challenged its enforceability.
Basically, the Iowa Supreme Court said that if you’re already married and have a prenup, you can’t make a new agreement about your potential inheritance rights in each other’s property. You can cancel your original prenup, but you can’t replace it with a new one while you’re still married.
Roberts v. Roberts as trustee of W. David Roberts Revocable Tr., 6 N.W.3d 730, 738 (Iowa 2024).
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The information on this page was last updated in August, 2024. Hello Prenup provides a platform for self-help. The information provided by Hello Prenup along with the content on our website related to legal matters (“Legal Information”) is provided for your private use and does not constitute legal advice. We do not review any information you provide us for legal accuracy or sufficiency, draw legal conclusions, provide opinions about your selection of forms, or apply the law to the facts of your situation. If you need legal advice for a specific problem, you should consult with a licensed attorney. Neither Hello Prenup nor any information provided by Hello Prenup is a substitute for legal advice from a qualified attorney licensed to practice in an appropriate jurisdiction.
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