Can a Couple Change Their Inheritance Agreement After Marriage? The Roberts Case
When spouses both sign a document about their property, it may seem reasonable to assume that the agreement will control. However, their signatures do not answer every question about whether the law permits that arrangement.
Roberts v. Roberts, No. 23-1131, decided by the Iowa Supreme Court on May 10, 2024, involved a later attempt to change rights established before marriage.
What happened?
David and Elizabeth Roberts signed a premarital agreement before marrying in 1993. They waived statutory elective shares but preserved a right to one-third of each other’s net real property interests at death.
In 2017, they signed a document called a partial revocation. It kept the elective-share waiver while giving up the agreed real-property share. Elizabeth received financial benefits in connection with the arrangement. After David died, she challenged the later document.
The district court enforced it. The Iowa Supreme Court reversed, treating the document as an amendment rather than a true revocation. Under the statutes the Court applied, that postmarital amendment concerning the spouses’ inchoate dower interests was unenforceable. The Court remanded, leaving related restitution counterclaims for further proceedings.
Why does the distinction matter?
Iowa Code section 596.7 permits revocation of a premarital agreement through a writing signed by both spouses. But revoking an agreement and preserving selected terms while changing others are different actions.
Section 597.2 also places limits on spouses contracting with each other over their interests in the other spouse’s property. Reading these provisions together requires more than checking whether both people signed a page.
For a practical example, imagine a couple wanting to keep the property-separation provisions of their agreement while removing only a survivor’s inheritance benefit. That request should be reviewed as the specific change it is. Calling the document a cancellation does not necessarily make it one.
What can families learn from this?
The planning lesson is to bring the entire agreement to counsel. A single paragraph may depend on another paragraph, and a proposed change may interact with statutory rights the couple has not considered.
It is also worth asking what happens to any money or other benefits exchanged if the agreement is later disputed. Resolving whether a provision is enforceable may leave additional questions about those transactions.
This case is not a statement that every agreement made during marriage is invalid. It concerns a particular kind of change and the Iowa statutes governing it. The useful question is whether the law permits the arrangement the couple is actually trying to make.
Tyler ThompsonAuthor