The third question a Georgia judge asks is whether circumstances have changed since the agreement was signed so as to make enforcing it unfair and unreasonable. In practice, the answer turns on whether the change was foreseeable.
Growing Wealth Is Foreseeable
In Mallen v. Mallen, 280 Ga. 43 (2005), the husband’s net worth grew from roughly $8.5 million to $22.7 million over an eighteen-year marriage. The wife argued that was a change making enforcement unfair. The Georgia Supreme Court disagreed, reasoning she “must have anticipated that his wealth would grow over the ensuing years,” so “the continued disparity in their financial situations was plainly foreseeable from the terms of the prenuptial agreement.”
Sides v. Sides, 290 Ga. 68 (2011), applied the same reasoning where the husband’s net worth nearly doubled across an almost twenty-year marriage. The Court held that “a significant growth of assets over many years can hardly be considered an unforeseeable changed circumstance that justifies voiding [a] prenuptial agreement.”
Harsh Timing Is Not a Changed Circumstance Either
The facts of Sides show how far this reaches. The agreement gave the wife substantially more if the parties divorced after their twentieth anniversary and substantially less if they divorced before it. The divorce became final sixty-two days short of that anniversary, leaving her with her car and $250,000 payable in $25,000 installments over ten years, rather than a larger share of an estate worth roughly $8 million.
The Georgia Supreme Court found no abuse of discretion in enforcing the agreement. What the parties wrote down controlled, because nothing had happened that they could not have seen coming when they wrote it.
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This post is a quick overview of the law and is not intended as legal advice. Please feel free to contact our office for a consultation if you have questions about this or any other legal aspects regarding your case!