Divorce Agreements and Support Obligations: What Happens To Them in Probate Court?

When people get divorced, they don’t think much about their estate plan, or about probate. They get divorced, and often do so with some sort of settlement agreement made between the spouses. But at the same time, those spouses may also have estate plans, and what is written in those estate plans may conflict with what was agreed to in the divorce.

Challenges in Probate Court

When someone passes away, and the estate is in probate court, that can lead to legal challenges in probate. An ex spouse who was promised things in a divorce, may challenge the will in probate court, if that will conflicts with what the spouse was supposed to get through the divorce.

That begs the question of who wins, when divorce documents, and estate planning documents, conflict?

Of course, the best course is to make sure they don’t conflict, so that you don’t have any problems in probate court. A divorce should be an important reminder to get back into the estate planning attorneys office, to renew those estate planning documents to avoid a conflict.

But if you haven’t done that, it will be up to the probate court to determine what happens.

The Divorce Agreement Usually Wins

As a general rule, your marital settlement agreement is considered a contract. Your estate planning documents cannot conflict with those documents, and a probate court will generally honor whatever you agreed to in the divorce—even if that agreement conflicts with your estate documents.

Of course, this may lead to the probate court having to determine what actually conflicts—to the extent possible, the probate court will try to abide by the wishes of both your marital settlement agreement, and your will or other estate planning documents. This can boil down to a matter of contractual interpretation.

In the event that your marital settlement agreement obligates you to provide property to your ex spouse, which you, in your estate plan, had wanted to go to someone else, that someone else may be left with nothing.

Alimony and Child Support

If a divorce included any kind of spousal support like alimony, by law, alimony terminates on the death of the paying spouse. However there could be language in a marital settlement agreement, that could be interpreted to obligate future payouts of alimony or property to the surviving ex-spouse, upon death, a promise that a probate court would have to honor.

The same is true about child support payments. However a surviving spouse who feels that he or she is owed back owed unpaid child support (arrears), can, in the probate court, ask that those previously due but unpaid child support payments be paid out of the estate’s assets. In fact, child support debts take very high priority in the order in which the deceased’s creditors are paid from estate assets.

Questions about what may happen in probate court? Call the West Palm Beach probate lawyers at The Law Offices of Larry E. Bray today for help with your probate court needs.

Sources:

parents.com/child-support-following-a-parents-death-8659096

flsenate.gov/laws/statutes/2022/61.08#:~:text=An%20award%20of%20permanent%20alimony,61.14.