What Financial Disclosure Does a Florida Prenup Require?

What Financial Disclosure Does a Florida Prenup Require?

Florida’s premarital agreement act took effect October 1, 2007. The act governs premarital agreements only, and postnuptial agreements are governed by Florida contract law and the Casto decision.

Under the act, a premarital agreement is not enforceable in a divorce if the party against whom enforcement is sought proves any of three separate grounds. The first ground is that the party did not execute the agreement voluntarily. The second ground is that the agreement was the product of fraud, duress, coercion or overreaching. The third ground requires proof of unconscionability when the agreement was executed and, before execution, that the party was not provided a fair and reasonable disclosure, did not voluntarily and expressly waive in writing any right to further disclosure, and did not have or reasonably could not have had an adequate knowledge of the other party’s property or financial obligations. Disclosure is one ground, and that ground needs unconscionability at signing plus all three disclosure failures proved together.

The challenger carries the burden. The act does not order disclosure as a condition of signing. Instead it makes inadequate disclosure one of three prongs a challenger must prove, and only alongside unconscionability at signing. A signed, express written waiver defeats that ground by itself.

The probate code works differently. Fair disclosure is required after marriage, but no disclosure is required for an agreement, contract or waiver executed before marriage. A waiver of spousal rights at death signed before the wedding can hold even if one side said nothing about what they owned.

No published Florida appellate decision has yet applied the act’s three-part test to a prenup signed on or after October 1, 2007. One 2021 decision described the section as a codification of the earlier rule, but the test has not been litigated to a reported opinion under the act.

The same agreement can fail in a divorce and hold at a death. The divorce side and the death side are two different bodies of law, and the rules on disclosure are one of the differences.

What Goes in a Prenup Disclosure Schedule?

The firm’s disclosure is an attached exhibit titled “Schedule of [name]'s Property, Debts, and Income”, with values as of the dates stated for each item.

Real property in the United States or elsewhere is listed first. Cash and bank accounts follow, with the institution, account type, last four digits, balance and statement date. Investment accounts are listed with any margin or loan balance and any transfer-on-death designation noted. Employer retirement plans (401(k), 403(b), pension) are listed separately from IRAs and Roth IRAs, and foreign pensions are included.

Business interests are listed with ownership percentage, approximate value and the source of the value. Trust interests and expectancies are disclosed even when they are contingent. For a contingent beneficiary of a parent’s revocable trust, the exhibit names the trust and its date, states that the parent controls it and may amend or revoke it, and notes that the party receives no distributions and has no present or guaranteed right to any asset.

Vehicles are listed with any loan. Personal property of significant value, including jewelry, art and collectibles, is listed. Debts and liabilities are listed with balances and dates.

Annual income is listed for the most recent year from the federal return and current pay stubs, with each source shown. The firm’s model exhibit shows income for the last three years, with tax returns made available to the other side. A list of documents made available is attached. Both parties initial the exhibit.

The exhibit is a table with columns for the asset or liability, how it is titled, the approximate value, the basis of the value (an appraisal, a county value, a statement date, a valuation), and whether it is separate or joint. The format matters because disclosure that shows values and income is what the Second District Court of Appeal approved in Johnson in 1962.

How Accurate Does the Disclosure Have to Be?

Good-faith approximations are enough. The firm’s agreement states that each party discloses approximate income, assets, liabilities and estate, that the values are good-faith approximations, and that the actual income and fair market values may be higher or lower.

An appraisal is not required. In one case, a husband’s 25 percent interest in an insurance agency was listed on his schedule as “Exact value unknown” with a note of the agency’s gross commissions. The interest was later worth $386,000. The Fourth District Court of Appeal enforced the agreement after 18 years of marriage and wrote that “[w]e do not read into Del Vecchio or Casto a requirement imposing a duty on Husband to hire an expert to determine a valuation of his interest in the agency before the parties could marry.”

A schedule without values is different. In Casto, the Florida Supreme Court in 1987 set aside a postnuptial agreement where the wife of a shopping-center developer signed for about $225,000 against assets that may have been worth $10 million. The husband refused to give her a financial statement. What she had was a handwritten list without values.

An omitted item can sometimes survive if the agreement shows knowledge another way. In Gordon, decided by the Fourth District in 2009, the husband’s airline pension was left off his schedule. The agreement survived because it had its own “Pension Benefits” section, and the court held that the prominent mention of pensions was sufficient to provide the wife with a general and approximate knowledge of the husband’s resources. A dissenting judge called the undervaluation of at least $143,000 neither a minute detail nor excusably inexact and would have voided the agreement.

A large omission can sink a postnup. In Kearney, the First District in 2013 set aside an agreement where the husband understated his income and omitted about $6.5 million in receivables.

Seeing the assets is not the same as knowing a value. In Hjortaas, the Second District in 1995 held that the wife did not possess the financial sophistication to convert what she saw into an appraised value. Living together and seeing the husband’s properties did not give her the knowledge required.

The firm’s form includes an “inaccuracies in disclosure” clause. The clause states that the values are approximations, the estates will change, an immaterial or unintentional inaccuracy in either exhibit does not affect enforceability, and each party waives further disclosure and formal appraisal beyond what was provided.

What Is a Waiver of Further Disclosure, and Should You Sign One?

The premarital agreement act allows a party to voluntarily and expressly waive, in writing, any right to disclosure of the other party’s property or financial obligations beyond the disclosure provided. A signed, express written waiver defeats the disclosure prong of a challenge by itself.

The firm drafts both the disclosure and the waiver. A separate article in the firm’s form, in the words of the premarital agreement act, states that each party received a fair and reasonable disclosure, that each voluntarily and expressly waives in writing any right to disclosure beyond the disclosure provided, and that each has an adequate knowledge of the other’s property and financial obligations. The agreement notes that each party had a full opportunity to request additional financial information and to retain any appraiser or other advisor.

An accurate aggregate disclosure plus an express waiver can hold even without a line-by-line breakdown. In a death-side case decided under another state’s law, the Third District Court of Appeal in 1990 wrote that “[t]he aggregate asset disclosure was extremely accurate and appellant expressly waived any right to a more detailed accounting.”

A clause in the other side’s draft may go further. One treatise form has each party waive any right ever to challenge the agreement for insufficient disclosure. The firm’s advice is to strike that clause or negotiate real disclosure first. A waiver of further disclosure after receiving a fair schedule is different from waiving the right to raise disclosure as a ground later when nothing was provided.

The waiver protects a party who gave good-faith disclosure from a challenge years later when values turned out higher or lower. The waiver does not protect a party who gave no disclosure and is counting on the other side’s signature to cover the gap.

Does a Prenup Need Disclosure to Hold Up at Death?

The divorce side and the death side are two different bodies of law. The same prenup can fail in a divorce and hold when a spouse dies. Florida’s probate code says no disclosure is required for a waiver signed before marriage.

In Stregack, the Florida Supreme Court in 1985 decided that rule clearly. A woman alleged that her husband told her before the wedding that he had “no assets” when he actually had about $250,000. Her elective share claim was struck anyway. The Court held that “nondisclosure in any form cannot invalidate an antenuptial agreement in probate proceedings of a deceased spouse.” The legislature, the Court said, intended to eliminate nondisclosure from consideration on the validity of these waivers at death.

A Fifth District Court of Appeal case applied the same rule to an incomplete disclosure that left out one asset worth about $10,000. The premarital waiver was enforced. The court noted the dissenting view from other cases had not gained a consensus in Florida courts or the legislature.

Fraud, coercion or incompetence remain grounds to set aside a prenup in probate. The Florida Supreme Court said in a 1980 case that a wife who could show her signature had been coerced or otherwise improperly obtained, or that she was incompetent at the time she signed, would not be barred from challenging the agreement.

The timing presumption available in divorce is not available in probate. In one case the husband handwrote the agreement the day before the wedding, had the bride type it, and both signed with no one else present. She had about $15,200 and his estate was $641,000. The Florida Supreme Court held the presumption that arises in a divorce from that timing and a lopsided deal is not available to the surviving spouse.

Postnup Disclosure: Why It Is Different

The probate code draws the line at the wedding. Before marriage, no disclosure is required for a death-side waiver. After marriage, the rule changes. Florida law says each spouse shall make a fair disclosure to the other if the agreement is executed after marriage.

Marriage creates something close to a fiduciary relationship between spouses for these agreements. A Florida court put it this way. “Unless both spouses have separate counsel at the time of preparation and execution of the agreement, the marital relationship remains in a non-adversarial stance, and each party has fiduciary-like responsibility to the other.”

Courts enforce this rule. In a 2013 case the wife of a technology company founder signed a postnuptial agreement giving up her interest in a company later valued at about $48 million for $3 million in installments. The husband understated his income and omitted about $6.5 million in receivables. The First District Court of Appeal set the agreement aside. The court held that “postnuptial agreements governing disposition of the parties’ assets are not enforceable if entered into in the absence of full and fair disclosure of the assets at issue ....”

The postnup fee is higher for this reason. A postnuptial agreement at this firm is a flat fee from $2,950. The disclosure work is heavier because Florida requires fair disclosure after the wedding, and each spouse has that fiduciary-like duty to the other.

Business Interests, Trusts and Expected Inheritances

Business interests, trust interests and expected inheritances are harder to value than a bank account. They still belong on the schedule.

The firm’s exhibit lists a business interest with the ownership percentage, the approximate value and the source of the value. A statement date, an internal valuation or a description of how the figure was reached goes in that column. A Fourth District Court of Appeal case made the point that no appraisal is required. The husband owned 25 percent of an insurance agency. His schedule listed the interest as “Exact value unknown” with a note of the agency’s gross commissions. The interest was later worth $386,000. The agreement was enforced after 18 years of marriage. The court said “[w]e do not read into Del Vecchio or Casto a requirement imposing a duty on Husband to hire an expert to determine a valuation of his interest in the agency before the parties could marry.”

A contingent trust interest gets its own entry. The firm’s exhibit describes it with the trust’s name and date, that the person who created it controls it and may amend or revoke it, that the party receives no distributions and has no present or guaranteed right to any asset. An expected inheritance is disclosed even though it is not yet a right. The point is that the other side knows the source exists.

Confidentiality matters for business financials. The firm’s drafting practice is to place returns and business records in a separate bound volume with a signed receipt. The agreement itself says documents are confidential, available only to lawyers, accountants and financial advisors, and in any proceeding the party seeks to file them under seal where permitted.

How Disclosure Is Done at This Firm

The disclosure schedules go to the other side early, before the agreement is final. Each schedule lists values, the date and basis of each value, liabilities and income. An index of the documents produced goes with it. The schedule notes that values are best estimates and the other side may inspect and appraise.

The agreement records the date each party first received it in substantially final form and the date each received the other’s financial disclosure. Those receipt dates go into the document itself.

The waiver of further disclosure is written in the language of Florida’s premarital agreement act. Each party states in writing that each received a fair and reasonable disclosure, that each voluntarily and expressly waives any right to disclosure beyond what was provided, and that each has an adequate knowledge of the other’s property and financial obligations.

Both exhibits are initialed by both parties. Two originals are signed at the signing, and each party keeps one.

The drafting fee is a flat fee from $2,450. The fee covers the first draft, up to two rounds of revisions with the other side’s lawyer, the financial disclosure schedules and a signing with two witnesses and a notary. The review fee is a flat fee from $750. The fee covers a full review of the agreement and its disclosures, a written analysis measured against Florida’s default rules and a call with the attorney. The free consultation is the place to start.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common Situations

A dentist listed her practice on the disclosure schedule with her ownership percentage, an approximate value and the source of that value. Her last three years of tax returns went into a separate bound volume, and her fiancé signed a receipt confirming he received the volume before signing. The agreement included a waiver of any right to disclosure beyond what was provided. The prenup fee of $2,450 covered the draft, up to two rounds of revision, the schedules and a signing with two witnesses and a notary.

A man was asked to sign a prenup ten days before the wedding. The fiancée’s disclosure schedule listed a family trust interest as “to be provided.” The review flagged the missing value as a red flag, along with any pension, business interest or expected inheritance left blank. The advice was to ask for the trust’s name, its date, whether the fiancée receives distributions, and the approximate value. The review fee of $750 covered a full analysis in plain English and a call with the attorney.

Sources of Law

• Disclosure ground: Fla. Stat. §61.079(7)(a)3 (2026) (a premarital agreement is unenforceable if the challenger proves it was unconscionable when executed and, before execution, was not provided a fair and reasonable disclosure, did not voluntarily and expressly waive in writing any right to disclosure beyond that provided, and did not have or reasonably could not have had an adequate knowledge of the other party's property or financial obligations); §61.079(7)(a)1 to 2 (the separate grounds of involuntariness and fraud, duress, coercion or overreaching); §61.079(7)(c).
• Death side: Fla. Stat. §732.702(2) (2026) ("Each spouse shall make a fair disclosure to the other of that spouse's estate if the agreement, contract, or waiver is executed after marriage. No disclosure shall be required for an agreement, contract, or waiver executed before marriage."); §732.702(1), (3).
• Cases, each read in full: Del Vecchio v. Del Vecchio, 143 So. 2d 17 (Fla. 1962); Casto v. Casto, 508 So. 2d 330 (Fla. 1987); Waton v. Waton, 887 So. 2d 419 (Fla. 4th DCA 2004); Gordon v. Gordon, 25 So. 3d 615 (Fla. 4th DCA 2009); Kearney v. Kearney, 129 So. 3d 381 (Fla. 1st DCA 2013); Johnson v. Johnson, 140 So. 2d 358 (Fla. 2d DCA 1962); Hjortaas v. McCabe, 656 So. 2d 168 (Fla. 2d DCA 1995); McNamara v. McNamara (Fla. 5th DCA 2010); Gordon v. Russell, 561 So. 2d 603 (Fla. 3d DCA 1990) (New Jersey law applied as an alternative ground); Stregack v. Moldofsky, 474 So. 2d 206 (Fla. 1985), quashing 449 So. 2d 918 (Fla. 3d DCA 1984); Estate of Roberts, 388 So. 2d 216 (Fla. 1980); Foster v. Estate of Gomes, 27 So. 3d 145 (Fla. 5th DCA 2010); Evered v. Edsell, 464 So. 2d 1197 (Fla. 1985); In re Estate of Shore (Fla. 4th DCA 1992); Tenneboe v. Tenneboe, 558 So. 2d 470 (Fla. 4th DCA 1990). Firm form and practice: the firm's 2026 premarital agreement form and Drafting Marriage Contracts in Florida (The Florida Bar, 2026), paraphrased. Every court quotation on this page was copied from the opinion file under reference/caselaw/prenup/61079/ (official slip text or CourtListener opinion text, read in full) and checked against it by script; see reference/caselaw/QUOTE-DISCIPLINE.md. Statute text retrieved 2026-10-28 from the 2026 Florida Statutes. No published Florida appellate decision in that corpus applies §61.079(7) to a premarital agreement signed on or after October 1, 2007; Bates describes the subsection as a codification of Casto.

Related Guides

Florida prenuptial agreements · what makes a prenup invalid · prenup review before you sign · does a prenup need to be notarized? · how long before the wedding to sign · postnuptial agreements · my spouse wants a postnup · prenups for trust beneficiaries · prenups for business owners · does a prenup apply at death?

What I Look for in the Other Side’s Schedule

In 14 years of law practice, I see disclosure schedules arrive from the other side with a line that reads “to be provided” where a value should be, or a business listed with no approximate worth and no source of the figure. Those schedules look thin because they are thin, and the question is whether they will hold up if the marriage ends.

I have a few take-home points.

The first is that the agreement itself can save incomplete disclosure. In Gordon v. Gordon, a Fourth District Court of Appeal case from 2009, the husband left his airline pension off the schedule entirely. The agreement survived anyway because it contained a separate pension section. The court held that “the prominent mention of pensions in the body of the agreement is sufficient to provide the former wife with a general and approximate knowledge of the former husband’s resources.” A dissenting judge called the undervaluation of at least $143,000 neither a minute detail nor excusably inexact, and would have voided the agreement. The lesson is that a well-drafted agreement can cure some disclosure gaps, but a thin schedule still invites a fight.

The second is that a signed, written waiver of further disclosure is its own defense. Florida’s premarital agreement act gives the challenger three things to prove alongside unconscionability at signing, and one of them is the absence of a voluntary and express written waiver. If the agreement has that waiver, the challenger’s burden becomes harder to meet. The firm gives the disclosure and the waiver together, and never relies on the waiver alone.

Avoid signing a schedule with blanks or “to be provided” entries. If the other side’s schedule reads that way, ask for the actual values before you sign. A blank today becomes an argument later.

One honest limit is that the 2007 act’s disclosure test has not been applied by a published Florida appellate decision to a prenup signed after October 1, 2007. The older cases remain the only guide, and the answer in any particular case depends on the facts a court will see.

Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., admitted in Florida since 2012. General information rather than advice on your situation.

Updated on October 28, 2026. Reviewed by Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., Fla. Bar No. 99502. General information about Florida law, not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created. Do not send confidential information until we have agreed to represent you.