Fraud will void a Georgia prenuptial agreement, but the reassurances spouses tend to remember from before the wedding rarely qualify.
A Broken Promise Is Not Enough
Under Dye v. Dye, 231 Ga. 533 (1973), “the mere failure to comply with a promise to perform an act in the future is not fraud in a legal sense. But when the failure to perform the promised act is coupled with the present intention not to perform, fraud, in the legal sense, is present.” Georgia calls that inceptive fraud. So the question is not whether your spouse kept the promise. It is what your spouse intended at the moment of making it.
“Just a Formality” and “I Will Take Care of You”
In Mallen v. Mallen, 280 Ga. 43 (2005), the wife claimed her husband induced her to sign by telling her the agreement was just a formality and promising he would “take care” of her. The Georgia Supreme Court found no fraud. The promise to take care of her “amounts to no more than a promise regarding future action, which is not actionable.” As for the agreement’s own terms, “a matter equally open to the observation of all parties, such as the terms of a written contract, will generally not support a claim of fraud.”
Similarly, in Hiers v. Estate of Hiers, 278 Ga. App. 242 (2006), a wife who had accepted $5,000 under a prenuptial agreement argued she had relied on her husband’s promise to take care of her financially. The Court of Appeals held those promises were “an insufficient basis for a finding of fraud.”
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This post is a quick overview of the law and is not intended as legal advice. Please feel free to contact our office for a consultation if you have questions about this or any other legal aspects regarding your case!