What do crawfish, po’boys, beignets, and unyielding prenuptial agreement formalities all have in common? Louisiana! In 2017, Louisiana’s Supreme Court carved out greater hurdles for prenuptial agreement requirements. You can read all about Louisiana’s strict approach to prenup procedures below. Just make sure before you go celebrating your bachelor(ette) party on Bourbon Street, you get that prenup squared away.
The Louisiana courts refer to prenuptial agreements as either “matrimonial agreements” or “prenuptial agreements.” A prenuptial agreement is a legal contract executed between two parties before getting married. Louisiana has tricky formalities that you need to pay close attention to, and if you don’t follow the procedure correctly, the court will invalidate your prenup. A Louisiana prenup is only valid if signed by both spouses, two witnesses, a notary, and filed with the local parish office(s). Alternatively, if you don’t want to have two witnesses and a notary, you can privately sign, but you still must “acknowledge” your signatures later with a notary, court, or another authorized official. Regardless of the method of execution, all signatures and acknowledgments must occur before the marriage takes place.
Louisiana’s Prenuptial Agreement statute and case law govern the laws in Louisiana pertaining to prenups and outline the rules and requirements for a valid agreement. The terms of a Louisiana prenup may include certain alimony limitations, property division, assets, debt, and more. On the other hand, a prenup in Louisiana cannot contract around child support, child custody, temporary alimony during a divorce proceeding, and non-financial matters (i.e., sexual activity).
The 2017 case that changed Louisiana prenups for-ev-er
A landmark Louisiana Supreme Court case known as Acurio v. Acurio laid the new framework for prenuptial formalities in Louisiana. This case came about in recent years (2017), and the court had to decide whether parties must duly acknowledge their signatures prior to the marriage for a prenup to be valid. Note, to properly execute a Louisiana prenup, you must either: (a) sign the prenup with two witnesses and a notary or (b) privately sign the prenup, and later you must both “acknowledge” your signatures before a court, notary, or another authorized officer. Thus, the question the Acurio court had to answer was: can you privately sign and have the prenup duly acknowledged after the marriage takes place? (Hint: the answer is no).
Husband and Wife married and got divorced. Then, they got married again and then divorced…again. No judgment, though; love works in mysterious ways! However, before marrying for the second time, they decided to execute a prenup. In executing the prenup, they both signed it, along with only one witness and a notary (Louisiana law requires two witnesses). They had to duly acknowledge their signatures since they didn’t meet the two-witness requirement. So, Husband and Wife later duly acknowledged the signatures during the divorce proceedings. The key piece of information here: they duly acknowledged their signatures during the second divorce.
Wife argued, which the Court ultimately agreed with, that the agreement did not follow the Louisiana statutory formalities. The couple did not duly authenticate the signatures on the prenup before the marriage. Thus, the court threw out the prenup.
What can we learn from the Acurios? If you don’t properly execute the prenup formalities of Louisiana law, your prenup will not stand. You must both sign the contract, along with two witnesses and a notary (or under private signature duly acknowledged by the spouses) before the wedding takes place. I repeat: the prenup must be signed, sealed, delivered in all aspects before the marriage.
Finally, don’t forget that you must file the prenup in the local parish, maybe even more than one! If the prenup discusses real estate, you must also file in the parish that the real estate is located. If you both live in different parishes, you should file in both locations.
Acurio v. Acurio , 224 So.3d 935 (2017)