The parties signed a Prenuptial Agreement before they married. It included a waiver of the right to maintenance. Husband later filed for divorce.
The wife argued that she should receive maintenance and a portion of any property which had been acquired during the marriage. Husband argued that the premarital agreement specifically provided that anything acquired during the marriage was nonmarital property. There was no indication that any marital property existed.
The wife was awarded temporary maintenance. She appealed.
She argued that she did not have sufficient information about her husband’s property. The wife did not argue that she did not voluntarily sign the premarital agreement. She admitted that she had not read it.
The wife failed to meet her burden. She did not prove that she did not have, or reasonably could not have had, an adequate knowledge of the husband’s property or financial obligations. The wife cannot claim a lack of understanding of the agreement or that it misled her. She had not read it.
The Court properly found that the agreement was not substantively or procedurally unconscionable. The parties had waived maintenance. But that was not effective until the dissolution or at the time of a legal separation. So, the court did not err in awarding temporary maintenance during the pendency of the dissolution proceedings.
In re Marriage of Woodrum, 2018 IL App (3d) 170369 (September 20, 2018)
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