Also known as: marital settlement agreement · marital settlement agrement · MSA · divorce settlement agreement
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A contract entered into by divorcing spouses that concerns the division of property, the support rights of a spouse and children, and sometimes child custody as well. A spouse may challenge the agreement by proving fraud, deceit, duress, coercion, misrepresentation, or overreaching. Alternatively, even without such misconduct, a court may set the agreement aside if it is unfair or unreasonable and the challenging spouse lacked full financial disclosure or a general knowledge of the other spouse's assets and income.
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Rosa and Miguel Mendoza operated a family farm and drafted a marital settlement agreement at their kitchen table without lawyers. The agreement awarded Miguel all land, equipment, and major assets while giving Rosa only a small lump sum and token support. When the court reviewed the parties' economic circumstances in the dissolution action, it found the agreement unconscionable and declined to enforce the property and support terms.
Miles Montgomery presented a marital settlement agreement to his spouse Melissa Mills during divorce negotiations. Melissa had limited English skills and no independent counsel, and Miles's attorneys explained the terms without urging her to seek separate representation. The court scrutinized the circumstances and determined that the agreement was not entered voluntarily, so it refused to enforce the disputed provisions.
A court may decline to enforce the agreement if it finds the terms unconscionable after reviewing the parties' economic circumstances. The judge may then require the spouses to submit a revised agreement or enter its own orders for property division, maintenance, and support.
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Parties may validly agree to arbitrate financial and property disputes, including claims involving business interests transferred during the marriage. However, an arbitrator may not grant an annulment or other status determination that changes marital status, which remains reserved for the court.
…to give proper weight to the circumstance that Sun was not represented by independent counsel. It asserted with regard to marital settlement agreements in dissolution actions that “the court should ‘carefully scrutinize the agreements’ when the party challenging the agreement did not have the advice of counsel [citation],” and that the…
…person or a person residing with that person: (a) Refuse to engage in a real estate transaction with a person. [MCL 37.2502; MSA
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The agreement does not revoke such provisions unless it contains express language preserving or altering the will. Silence in the agreement on the will typically allows the divorce-revocation statute to operate and cancel the pre-divorce disposition.
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A valid spendthrift clause restrains both voluntary and involuntary transfers of the beneficiary's interest. The assignment in the settlement agreement is therefore ineffective against the trustee, and the beneficiary's ex-spouse must pursue any claim directly against the beneficiary rather than the trust.
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