How Can a Prenuptial Agreement Affect My Maryland Inheritance Rights as a Married Person?
When most people hear the phrase “prenuptial agreement,” they immediately think about divorce. But prenuptial (and post-nuptial) agreements are also commonly used to define the inheritance rights of spouses when one of them dies. Under Maryland law, the surviving spouse has the right to claim an “elective share” of their deceased spouse’s estate. This effectively prevents one spouse from disinheriting the other without their consent.
Under Maryland’s elective share rule, the surviving spouse can claim one-third of the deceased spouse’s elective estate if the deceased spouse had surviving children (or descendants of those children), or one-half of the elective estate if the surviving spouse left no surviving descendants.
Normally, the surviving spouse has to claim their elective share within a certain time period following their spouse’s death. But a spouse can also waive their elective share rights beforehand through a “written contract, agreement, or waiver,” including a prenuptial or post-nuptial agreement. Maryland courts have long held, however, that any such agreement must contain a “clear statement” of the party’s intentions to waive their elective share rights, or at the very least a waiver is a “necessary implication” of the contract.
Outdated Language Can Still Be Used to Interpret Modern Prenup
The Appellate Court of Maryland recently elaborated on the “necessary implication” standard. The case before the court, In re the Estate of Williams, involved a prenuptial agreement signed by a husband and wife in 2015 just before their marriage. There was no “clear statement” in the agreement waiving either spouse’s elective share rights. But there was a paragraph that stated,
each party renounces any interest by way of curtesy, dower, homestead or similar rights in and to any property of the other now owned or hereafter acquired by either party…
The Appellate Court held this language was sufficient to create the “necessary implication” that the husband waived his right to an elective share from the estate of his wife, who died in 2022. The Court explained that “curtesy, dower, homestead” were outdated common law principles that once “operated to protect some portion of a decedent’s estate for the benefit of a surviving spouse.”
For example, under the old common law, a husband who survived his wife had the curtesy right to a life estate in his wife’s property. Conversely, dower was the wife’s right to a one-third interest in a deceased husband’s property. But the Maryland General Assembly abolished both curtesy and dower in 1969, when it adopted the elective share rule. So in effect, the court noted, the husband and wife in this case used their prenup to waive common law rights that “hadn’t existed in decades.”
That said, the court went on to say that the underlying concepts of curtesy and dower were “similar to” to the rights granted by an elective share. Therefore, by waiving the now-outdated rights in their prenuptial agreement, the husband also waived his modern elective share rights in his late wife’s estate.
Contact a La Plata Prenuptial & Post-Nuptial Agreement Lawyer Today
When it comes to a prenuptial or post-nuptial, you want there to be as little ambiguity as possible. That is why you should work with a La Plata prenuptial and post-nuptial agreements lawyer who can help ensure that the wishes of you and your spouse are unmistakable. Contact Fanning Law today at 301-934-3620 to schedule a consultation. We serve clients in LaPlata, Waldorf, and Lexington Park.
Source:
scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=8994774774207441689
