New Florida Prenup & Postnup Laws: What the Courts Decided This Month

Florida’s prenup statute has not changed in years. The law that governs your agreement changes constantly anyway — one appellate opinion at a time. This page lists, newest first, every recent Florida decision and statutory change that bears on prenuptial and postnuptial agreements, with a plain-English note on what each one means for the clauses in your document. It is written by the attorney and updated weekly.

Recent decisions, newest first

Each entry gives the court, the date, a short account of what happened, and why it matters for a prenup or postnup. The opinions below construe marital settlement agreements, which Florida courts interpret under the same contract principles they apply to premarital and postmarital agreements. Citations are to the slip opinions as released.

1. October 7, 2026 · Fourth District Court of Appeal

   Kennedy v. Kennedy

   No. 4D2025-2845 (Fla. 4th DCA Oct. 7, 2026)

   What happened. A 2003 final judgment incorporated the couple’s written agreement, which set nonmodifiable alimony on a declining schedule until the husband reached 65. Years later, living on disability income, he argued that federal law capped how much of his Social Security could be taken for the arrears. The Fourth District disagreed: because the agreement had been incorporated into a court order for support, the higher support-garnishment ceiling (up to 65 percent) applied, and the “nonmodifiable” label changed nothing about enforcement.

   Why it matters for your prenup or postnup. Once a prenup or postnup’s alimony terms are folded into a judgment, they carry every enforcement tool a court order carries. Two drafting points follow. First, say exactly what is and is not modifiable. Second, treat an agreed alimony figure as a real debt with real collection consequences, not a soft promise. Our agreements spell out the enforcement consequences of each support term so that neither spouse is surprised a decade later — and for postnups, where the parties are already married and the number is often negotiated against an existing lifestyle, we stress-test it against what happens if income falls.

2. September 23, 2026 · Fourth District Court of Appeal

   Valiente v. Romero

   No. 4D2025-1919 (Fla. 4th DCA Sept. 23, 2026)

   What happened. The couple’s agreement let one spouse keep the house by paying the other $140,000 within 60 days; failing that, the house would be sold and the net proceeds split equally. The buyout never happened, the house sold for roughly $186,000 in net proceeds, and the trial court nonetheless awarded the fixed $140,000. The Fourth District reversed. The two clauses were separate alternatives; reading the fixed number into the sale scenario would have made the equal-split sentence meaningless.

   Why it matters for your prenup or postnup. Courts read a marital agreement from its four corners and give every sentence effect. A buyout clause and its fallback must each say precisely when it applies and what happens if the numbers move. In a prenup, that is the difference between a clean property schedule and a lawsuit about which paragraph controls; in a postnup covering a home the couple already owns together, it is even more pressing, because the equity is real and present. We write property and buyout provisions as if–then sequences with no gaps between them.

3. September 2, 2026 · Third District Court of Appeal

   Del Fabbro v. Bonetto

   No. 3D2025-0372 (Fla. 3d DCA Sept. 2, 2026)

   What happened. A marital agreement required the parents to make major decisions together, listed an “immigration application” among them, and promised that neither would unreasonably withhold consent. When they disagreed about what that phrase covered, the trial judge decided it as a pure question of law. The Third District sent it back: when a clause can reasonably be read two ways, the court must hold an evidentiary hearing and consider outside evidence of what the parties meant — and a promise not to unreasonably withhold consent is an enforceable duty, not a courtesy.

   Why it matters for your prenup or postnup. Ambiguity is expensive. One phrase that can carry two meanings converts a signature into a hearing about intentions. In our prenups and postnups, every defined term gets a definition, every list says whether it is exhaustive, and every consent or cooperation clause states the standard a court should apply. We also include a plain-English statement of purpose, because it is exactly the extrinsic evidence a court would otherwise have to reconstruct from memory.

4. August 26, 2026 · Third District Court of Appeal

   Law Offices of Adorno-Cunill & Damas, P.L. v. Dylewski

   No. 3D2026-0840 (Fla. 3d DCA Aug. 26, 2026)

   What happened. A physician sued his former divorce lawyers, claiming they let him sign an agreement that fixed alimony on a $950,000 income figure he said was temporarily inflated. When the firm sought his later income records to test that claim, the trial court refused to order them produced. The Third District quashed that ruling: a party who puts his own income history in issue cannot shield the records that would prove or disprove it, and financial privacy yields to relevance.

   Why it matters for your prenup or postnup. The income and asset figures in a marital agreement’s disclosure schedules are the facts a court will test years later, and your own later records can be opened to test them. This matters doubly for postnups, where Florida’s Casto standard already places a heightened emphasis on full and frank disclosure between spouses. We build disclosure schedules like litigation exhibits: accurate as of the signing date, with a note on anything unusual (a one-time bonus, a business in transition, a year of unusually high or low earnings), so the agreement never rests on a number either spouse will later disown.

5. August 19, 2026 · Fourth District Court of Appeal

   Gonzalez v. Gonzalez

   No. 4D2025-2461 (Fla. 4th DCA Aug. 19, 2026)

   What happened. The agreement said alimony would continue “until [the wife] is remarried.” The former wife argued that meant alimony could never be reduced for any other reason. The Fourth District held the opposite: Florida reads the statutory right to modify alimony under section 61.14 into every alimony agreement unless the waiver is express or unmistakable from the document as a whole. Naming one event that ends alimony does not make it the only one.

   Why it matters for your prenup or postnup. If you want an alimony term that cannot be changed — a fixed amount, a fixed end date, or a full waiver — the agreement must say “nonmodifiable” in those words and say what that covers. Silence, or a single terminating event, is not a waiver. Every alimony clause we draft, in a prenup or a postnup, now states in one sentence whether it is modifiable and under what circumstances.

The statutes behind every entry

Section 61.079, Florida Statutes (Uniform Premarital Agreement Act). The prenup statute. It sets the writing-and-signature requirement, lists what an agreement may cover, and defines the grounds for attack: an agreement not signed voluntarily, or one that was the product of fraud, duress, coercion, or overreaching, or that was unconscionable when signed and made without fair and reasonable disclosure. It also states that a premarital agreement cannot adversely affect a child’s right to support.

Casto v. Casto, 508 So. 2d 330 (Fla. 1987). The rule for postnups. Florida has no postnuptial statute, so agreements signed after the wedding are judged under Casto: the agreement must be either fair and reasonable on its face, or supported by full and frank disclosure of the other spouse’s finances, and it is vulnerable to fraud, duress, coercion, overreaching, and concealment. Our postnuptial agreements page walks through how the standard works in practice.

Section 61.14 and chapter 2023-315, Laws of Florida. The modification statute and the 2023 alimony reform that abolished permanent alimony for new cases and created the current framework of bridge-the-gap, rehabilitative, and durational alimony. The decisions above show the courts reading section 61.14’s right to modify into every alimony agreement unless the waiver is express — the single most important drafting lesson of the year.

Section 732.702, Florida Statutes. The estate-rights waiver statute. A waiver of elective share, homestead, and intestate rights signed before marriage needs no disclosure to be valid; one signed after the marriage requires fair disclosure. Either way, two subscribing witnesses are required — a formality that section 61.079 alone does not impose and that many out-of-state forms miss.

Common questions

General information about Florida law — not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created by reading it. This page summarizes published Florida appellate opinions and statutes as released; a later opinion, rehearing, or statutory amendment can change the law described here. Last updated October 31, 2026.