There’s a common assumption that once two people sign a prenuptial agreement, it’s essentially untouchable. Maryland courts will occasionally strike down a prenup, but not for the reasons most people expect. Vague feelings of unfairness won’t do it. Neither will the argument that life turned out differently than planned. Maryland applies a specific legal test tied to what happened at the moment of signing, and understanding that test matters whether you’re drafting an agreement today or questioning one in a pending divorce.
At Law Office of Nicholas T. Exarhakis, we’ve worked with Maryland families on prenuptial agreements and family law matters for over 25 years. The questions we hear most often from clients in Annapolis and the surrounding Anne Arundel County area come down to this: what would actually convince a court to throw out a prenup? The answer is more precise than most online guides let on.
Maryland’s Real Test for Prenup Validity: The Cannon Overreaching Standard
The controlling authority in Maryland is Cannon v. Cannon, a 2005 Maryland Supreme Court decision that established what’s known as the overreaching standard. Overreaching means one spouse took unfair advantage of a position of power or trust during the agreement process. The case didn’t just define the standard. It also addressed who carries the burden of proving it.
Maryland law presumes that two engaged people share a confidential relationship built on trust and reliance on each other’s good faith. Because of that presumption, the burden doesn’t fall on the spouse challenging the prenup. It falls on the spouse trying to enforce it. That spouse must show there was no overreaching. Many competing sources get this backwards, which leads people to underestimate how seriously courts scrutinize the enforcing party’s conduct.
The overreaching test has two distinct parts that Maryland courts evaluate separately.
- Procedural fairness: Was the agreement entered freely, voluntarily, and with full knowledge of its terms? This covers disclosure, timing, access to counsel, and whether either party faced pressure or coercion.
- Substantive fairness: Were the rights being waived reasonably proportionate to what that spouse received in return? Extreme one-sidedness can signal overreaching, though the bar is high.
Procedural Grounds That Can Invalidate a Prenup
Procedural problems at the time of signing are the most common reason Maryland courts decline to enforce a prenuptial agreement. Maryland requires full, frank, and truthful disclosure of each spouse’s financial picture before the agreement is signed. Incomplete disclosure doesn’t just weaken the agreement. It can defeat enforcement entirely, causing the enforcing spouse to lose the ability to satisfy the Cannon burden.
Two additional requirements govern form. Prenuptial agreements, also referred to as antenuptial agreements in court opinions, must be in writing (oral agreements aren’t recognized) and both parties must sign. An agreement that fails either requirement is void before a court ever reaches the fairness question.
A 2018 unreported appellate decision, Michniewicz v. Michniewicz, illustrates how these factors interact. The court invalidated a prenup where one spouse’s assets weren’t fully disclosed and the challenging spouse, whose primary language wasn’t English, had limited ability to understand the document she signed. Neither factor alone might have been decisive, but together they showed the agreement wasn’t entered knowingly or freely.
Substantive Grounds: Unconscionable & Prohibited Terms
Substantive unconscionability (extreme unfairness in the agreement’s actual terms) is a harder standard to meet than most people expect. In Stewart v. Stewart and Martin v. Farber, Maryland courts upheld decades-old prenups over one-sidedness objections, emphasizing that an agreement doesn’t have to be equal to be enforceable. It has to reflect a meaningful choice, not terms forced on a spouse with no real alternative.
Beyond unconscionability, Maryland won’t enforce certain categories of provisions regardless of how carefully they were drafted.
Child Custody & Child Support Provisions
Any clause purporting to decide custody arrangements or set child support amounts is unenforceable in Maryland. Courts determine those issues based on the child’s best interests at the time the question arises, a standard that can’t be satisfied before a child is born or before circumstances develop. Including such a clause doesn’t automatically void the rest of the agreement, but it won’t be given effect.
Terms That Violate Public Policy
A clause conditioning a financial payment on the parties actually divorcing is void as against public policy because it creates an incentive to end the marriage. Courts can treat that clause as unenforceable while leaving the rest of the agreement intact.
How the 2024 Knizhnik Ruling Narrows What “Invalid” Can Mean
In April 2024, the Maryland Appellate Court issued its decision in Knizhnik v. Knizhnik and explicitly rejected the second look doctrine, a legal approach used in several other states that allows courts to revisit a prenup’s fairness at the time of divorce, even if it was fair when signed. Under that doctrine, a spouse could argue that a job loss, a serious illness, or years of economic disparity during the marriage made the agreement’s terms unconscionable by the time divorce arrived. The Knizhnik ruling closed that avenue in Maryland. Courts here evaluate unconscionability only as of the date the agreement was executed.
The practical effect is significant. A prenup that was substantively fair at signing doesn’t become invalid because one spouse’s financial position changed dramatically over the course of the marriage. Validity challenges have to point to something that was wrong when the ink dried, not something that developed afterward.
When One Invalid Clause Doesn’t Sink the Whole Agreement
A common misunderstanding is that finding one unenforceable provision means the entire prenuptial agreement falls apart. That isn’t necessarily true in Maryland. Courts can sever an invalid clause (treating it as cut from the agreement) while leaving the remaining provisions in place. This works when the flawed clause isn’t so deeply interwoven with everything else that removing it makes the rest logically incoherent.
A severability clause, which is language in the agreement itself instructing a court to preserve valid portions if one part fails, makes this outcome clearer and more predictable. It’s not legally required for severance to occur, but its absence creates room for argument about whether the parties would have agreed to the remaining terms on their own.
For couples in the Annapolis area, a dispute over whether a prenuptial agreement holds up would be litigated in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County, which handles family law matters including divorce. Local judicial history and practice can shape how these arguments are framed and how quickly cases move, which is worth knowing before a challenge is filed.
Building an Agreement That Holds Up
Maryland decides prenuptial agreement validity based on what happened at the time of signing, not on how the marriage unfolded in the years that followed. Complete financial disclosure, sufficient time between signing and the wedding, access to independent counsel, and clearly written terms aren’t procedural formalities. They’re the substance of what Maryland courts will examine if the agreement is ever challenged, and getting those elements right from the beginning is the most reliable protection available.
If you’re considering a prenuptial agreement or have questions about one that already exists, we work directly with each client through every stage of the drafting and review process. You can reach our Annapolis office at (410) 593-0040.