In a recent post we discussed how Maryland law governs prenuptial and postnuptial agreements. As we noted, these agreements are treated just like any other contract between two parties. Ideally, this means that each party is represented by their own counsel and each side has an opportunity to carefully read and understand any proposed agreement before signing on the bottom line.

So, let’s talk about a real-life case in which that apparently did not happen. The Maryland Court of Special Appeals recently issued an unreported opinion, Helal v. Helal, declining to reverse a Montgomery County circuit court’s decision to invalidate a prenuptial agreement in a pending divorce case. This case involves a husband and wife who married in 2011. This was neither party’s first marriage: The husband had been married twice before, and wife once before.

Both spouses are natives of Egypt, although the husband has lived in the United States since the 1970s and worked as an Arabic interpreter. The wife, in contrast, apparently had much more limited proficiency in English than her husband. This is relevant, because six days before the couple’s wedding, the husband presented the wife with a prenuptial agreement that had been written in English by the husband’s attorney. The wife was then encouraged to hire an attorney “suggested” by the husband’s lawyer.

Approximately seven years into the marriage, the wife filed for divorce in Montgomery County Circuit Court. She alleged the prenuptial agreement was invalid for several reasons, including:

• The attorney recommended by her husband’s lawyer did not adequately explain the contents of the prenuptial agreement to her;
• She was not provided with an Arabic translator or translation despite her limited English proficiency; and
• After the marriage, the wife learned the husband had failed to disclose approximately $332,000 in assets.

The Circuit Court accepted the wife’s testimony as credible and invalidated the agreement after holding a four-day hearing. The judge found the entire process by which the husband obtained the prenuptial agreement was problematic. The husband asked the court to reconsider its decision and hold a new hearing. The judge declined, prompting the husband to file an interlocutory appeal.

An interlocutory refers to a situation in which a party to litigation tries to appeal a non-final order from a trial court. In most situations, an appellate court will not hear an interlocutory appeal and will wait for a final judgment. That is precisely what the Court of Special Appeals did in this case. It held the husband was not entitled to an immediate appeal with respect to the invalidation of the prenuptial agreement while the underlying divorce case had yet to be tried on the merits.

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Source:

https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=9780384138766545712