The Death of Prenups

[abcdavid01]

http://mangans.blogspot.com/2013/03/pre ... valid.html

Prenups no longer valid?

Wife of millionaire LI real-estate mogul gets judge to rip up her prenup

The beautiful wife of a millionaire Long Island real-estate mogul got a judge to rip up her prenup — a rare, precedent-setting decision that could influence countless marriages to wealthy people.

Elizabeth Petrakis, 39 — sometimes acting as her own lawyer — got a an appellate panel last month to toss the agreement she signed with Peter Petrakis, 41, four days before their lavish 1998 wedding.

The prenup stipulated that Peter, who parlayed a string of smoke shops into a $20 million commercial real-estate empire, would keep everything in his name if they split up.

But Elizabeth argued for seven years that Peter coerced her signature, threatening to call off the wedding even though her father had already paid $40,000 for the reception.

So, the judge, based on nothing other than a woman's say-so, threw out a written contract. Marriage just got even worse.

That she was coerced into signing because her father had allegedly already paid for the wedding makes a mockery out of the idea of coercion. She was free to do anything she liked.

It would hard to imagine the judge doing what he did were the sex roles reversed. Virtually everything in divorce proceedings now favors the woman, even if she's as conniving as this one appears to be.

This judgment now threatens to throw out every prenup around. A woman can always argue that she was coerced.

[momopi]

http://online.wsj.com/article/AP4835862 ... 74b92.html

I do not know NY family law. Here in CA, after the prenup is drafted and presented to both parties with legal counsel, both parties must wait 7 full days before they can sign. As a general rule of thumb, the prenup should be reviewed and signed at least 30 days before the wedding.

If the prenup was only presented or signed 4 days prior to the wedding, it'd give more weight to the ''last minute coercion" argument. But if it was signed at least 30 days prior, the argument of "he/she had plenty of time to think about it" would carry more weight. The fact that the ex-wife only singed 4 days prior to the wedding raises red flags.