Minn. Stat. § 519.11, subd. 1(b) tells you what an antenuptial agreement is allowed to do. Clause (4) says the parties “may bar each other of all rights in the respective estates not so secured to them by their agreement.”
Minn. Stat. § 524.2-213 then tells you what that language accomplishes:
Unless it provides to the contrary, a waiver of “all rights,” or equivalent language, in the property or estate of a spouse is a waiver only of the right to the elective share.
Four spousal rights are named in the first sentence of § 524.2-213 — the right of election, and “the rights of the surviving spouse to the homestead, exempt property, and family allowance.” A waiver written in the vocabulary § 519.11 supplies reaches, by the terms of § 524.2-213, one of them.
That is the problem. The premarital agreement and the waiver of spousal rights at death are two instruments, governed by two sections, with two sets of formalities and two disclosure standards — and drafting one well does not produce the other. The elective share itself, and how it reaches a revocable trust, is covered in you cannot disinherit a spouse in Minnesota. Here the question is narrower: what it takes to give those rights away, and when.
What does § 519.11 actually require?
Five procedural elements, one substantive standard, and a seven-day clock — all of which changed in 2024.
Subdivision 1(a) sets the frame: an antenuptial agreement entered into “prior to the solemnization of marriage … shall be valid and enforceable if the agreement meets the procedural and substantive fairness requirements under subdivisions 1b and 1c.”
Subdivision 1b(b) is the procedural checklist. An antenuptial agreement is procedurally fair if:
(1) there is full and fair disclosure of the current income and property of each party; (2) each party has had a meaningful opportunity to consult with independent legal counsel of the party’s choosing; (3) the agreement is in writing, executed in the presence of two witnesses, and acknowledged by the parties before a person authorized to administer an oath under the laws of this state; (4) the agreement is entered into voluntarily and free of duress; and (5) the agreement is entered into and executed no less than seven days before the marriage.
Three things in that list are easy to get wrong.
“Full and fair disclosure” is a defined term and it cannot be waived. Subdivision 1b(a): it “means that each party has provided a reasonably accurate description of all material facts of their income and good faith estimates of the value of their property and discloses the basis for these disclosures.” Then: “A party must not waive the full and fair disclosure requirement under paragraph (b), clause (1).” A schedule of round numbers with no explanation of where they came from does not meet a standard that requires disclosing “the basis for these disclosures.”
Witnesses and acknowledgment are both required, and a power of attorney will not do. Subdivision 1b(d) closes the obvious workaround in one sentence: “A power of attorney does not satisfy the requirements of paragraph (b), clause (3).” A signature executed by an agent under a Minnesota power of attorney is not a signature for this purpose.
And the seven days are described twice, not identically. Clause (5) states execution “no less than seven days before the marriage” as a procedural-fairness requirement. Subdivision 1b(c) frames the same period as a presumption: an agreement executed at least seven days out “is presumed enforceable and the burden of proof is on the party seeking to set aside the agreement,” while one executed inside seven days “is not presumed enforceable, and the proponent of the agreement has the burden of proof.” Whether the seven days is a condition or a burden-allocating rule is a tension on the face of the statute — and not one worth testing.
Substantive fairness is the separate gate in subdivision 1c, which asks whether the agreement is “substantively unfair as to be unconscionable … either by the agreement’s terms or as the result of drastically changed circumstances originally not foreseen when the agreement was created, such that enforcement would no longer comport with the reasonable expectations of the parties at the time that the parties executed the agreement” — while paragraph (b) protects the whole point of having one: “A deviation from statutory standards does not in itself make an agreement unconscionable.”
Two smaller provisions repay attention. Subdivision 1(d): “An agreement duly acknowledged and attested is prima facie proof of the matters acknowledged in the agreement” — the formalities buy an evidentiary presumption, not just validity. And subdivision 1(e): severance is available only “[i]f an antenuptial agreement unambiguously permits severability.” A prenup without an express severability clause is an all-or-nothing document.
Does a valid antenuptial agreement waive the spouse’s rights at death?
Only as far as it says so, and the standard formula does not say enough.
Subdivision 1(b) authorizes an antenuptial agreement to “determine the rights that each party has in the estate of the other as otherwise conferred upon them by chapter 524” (clause (3)) and to “bar each other of all rights in the respective estates not so secured to them by their agreement” (clause (4)). Clause (3) is the operative grant of power. Clause (4) is a phrase, and § 524.2-213 construes phrases of that kind narrowly: an “all rights” waiver, “or equivalent language,” is “a waiver only of the right to the elective share.”
Does that construction rule reach a premarital waiver executed under § 519.11, or only the post-marriage waivers the first sentence of § 524.2-213 describes? The sentence itself carries no such limitation, and the section’s third sentence routes premarital waivers through § 519.11 — which places them within the section’s subject matter. But the statute does not say so in terms, and this article does not treat the point as settled. It does not need to be. The drafting response is the same either way: enumerate. Name the elective share. Name the homestead under § 524.2-402. Name exempt property under § 524.2-403 — household furniture, furnishings, appliances and personal effects not exceeding $15,000 in value in excess of any security interests, plus one automobile without regard to value. Name the family allowance under § 524.2-404, which the personal representative may set at up to $2,300 per month. Those rights are treated in the homestead, exempt property, and family allowance; the drafting point is that a waiver that does not name them is, by the terms of § 524.2-213, “a waiver only of the right to the elective share.”
The homestead needs its own line for an independent reason. Section 524.2-402(a) provides that the homestead “descends free from any testamentary or other disposition of it to which the spouse has not consented in writing or as provided by law” — a separate written-consent requirement attached to a specific asset. Paragraph (d) then supplies a default that runs the other way: the surviving spouse “is deemed to consent” to a disposition not previously consented to in writing unless the spouse files a petition asserting homestead rights. A plan that relies on the spouse failing to file is not a plan.
What formalities does the death-side waiver require?
Far fewer — and that asymmetry is the practical point.
Section 524.2-213 in full is three sentences:
The right of election of a surviving spouse and the rights of the surviving spouse to the homestead, exempt property, and family allowance, or any of them, may be waived, wholly or partially, after marriage, by a written contract, agreement, or waiver signed by the party waiving after fair disclosure. Unless it provides to the contrary, a waiver of “all rights,” or equivalent language, in the property or estate of a spouse is a waiver only of the right to the elective share. Any waiver prior to marriage must be made pursuant to section 519.11.
Set that beside subdivision 1b(b). A post-marriage waiver needs a writing, a signature by the waiving party, and fair disclosure. No two witnesses. No acknowledgment before an oath-administering officer. No seven-day interval, because there is no wedding to count back from. And no signature from both spouses — only “the party waiving.”
The disclosure standards are also written in different words. Section 519.11 requires “full and fair disclosure,” defines the term, and forbids waiving it. Section 524.2-213 requires “fair disclosure” and does not define it. Those are not obviously the same standard — and a waiver drafted to the lower one but executed before the wedding falls under the last sentence of § 524.2-213, which sends it back to § 519.11 and the full checklist.
So the timing of the signature decides which statute governs. Same clients, same paper, same intent: signed the week before the wedding, it is a § 519.11 agreement and needs witnesses, acknowledgment, and full and fair disclosure. Signed the month after, it is a § 524.2-213 waiver and needs a writing, a signature, and fair disclosure.
Is a post-marriage waiver a postnuptial agreement?
Not for the purposes that matter — and the way § 519.11 gets there is worth reading closely, because it is the most useful sentence in the section for an estate planner.
A postnuptial agreement under subdivision 1d is a demanding document. It must comply with the antenuptial requirements except the seven-day rule, and paragraph (c) adds a condition with no antenuptial counterpart: “A postnuptial agreement is valid and enforceable only if at the time of its execution each spouse is represented by separate legal counsel.” Before the wedding, § 519.11 requires only a “meaningful opportunity to consult” independent counsel. After it, actual separate representation is a validity condition. Paragraph (d) adds a presumption of unenforceability “if either party commences an action for a legal separation or dissolution within two years of the date of the agreement’s execution, unless the spouse seeking to enforce the postnuptial agreement can establish that the postnuptial agreement is fair and equitable.”
Then paragraph (e):
Nothing in this section impairs the validity or enforceability of a contract, an agreement, or a waiver that is entered into after marriage and that is described in sections 524.2-201 to 524.2-215. Further, a conveyance permitted by section 500.19 is not a postnuptial agreement under this section.
Section 524.2-213 sits inside that range. Note what paragraph (e) does and does not say. It does not say a § 524.2-213 waiver is not a postnuptial agreement — the legislature used that flat formula in the very next sentence, and used it only for a § 500.19 conveyance. What it says instead is that nothing in § 519.11 impairs the waiver’s validity or enforceability. For a planner the practical effect is the same and slightly stronger for being framed as a rule of non-impairment: subdivision 1d’s validity conditions — separate counsel, the two-year presumption — cannot be turned against a waiver described in §§ 524.2-201 to 524.2-215. That is a real and narrow tool: a married couple can accomplish a waiver of elective share, homestead, exempt property and family allowance without either the postnuptial formalities or the antenuptial ones.
The carve-out has an edge, and the edge is the document’s scope. The moment the same paper also allocates marital property or addresses spousal maintenance, it is doing what subdivision 1d governs, and paragraph (e) protects only what is “described in sections 524.2-201 to 524.2-215.” Combining an estate-rights waiver and a property-division agreement into one instrument puts the whole thing on the postnuptial track — separate counsel and all.
Which property does the agreement reach: what one spouse brought in, or what the couple builds?
Both. Subdivision 1(b)(1) lets the agreement “determine what rights each party has in the marital and nonmarital property, as those terms are defined in section 518.003, subdivision 3b, upon a dissolution of marriage or legal separation” — and that definition draws the before-and-during line explicitly.
Note first that the definition § 519.11 imports is written for a divorce: “‘Marital property’” means property “acquired by the parties, or either of them, to a dissolution, legal separation, or annulment proceeding at any time during the existence of the marriage relation between them,” and the subdivision adds a presumption: “All property acquired by either spouse subsequent to the marriage and before the valuation date is presumed to be marital property regardless of whether title is held individually or by the spouses in a form of co-ownership …” Against that, “‘Nonmarital property’ means property real or personal, acquired by either spouse before, during, or after the existence of their marriage,” which — among other things — “(b) is acquired before the marriage,” “(c) is acquired in exchange for or is the increase in value of property which is described in clauses (a), (b), (d), and (e),” or “(e) is excluded by a valid antenuptial contract.”
Read clause (e) twice. The antenuptial contract is itself one of the ways property becomes nonmarital. The agreement is not merely describing a pre-existing category; it is a mechanism for assigning property to it — including property acquired during the marriage that the presumption would otherwise sweep the other way. Clause (c) then carries the character forward into exchanges and appreciation, which is why an agreement that names an asset without addressing what replaces it or what it grows into does half a job. Where the asset is a closely held business, this is where the premarital agreement and the company documents have to be read together — the coordination problem described in the estate plan and the buy-sell are one document.
Can it be changed later, and does the current statute even apply to it?
Two subdivisions decide whether the document in the client’s file is the document the client thinks it is.
Subdivision 2a: “An antenuptial agreement may be amended or revoked after the marriage of the parties only by a valid postnuptial agreement that complies with this section and with the laws of this state.” There is no informal amendment. A side letter, an email, or a signed addendum without separate counsel for each spouse does not modify a prenup after the wedding, because the only permitted vehicle is a postnuptial agreement — and that vehicle carries the separate-counsel condition with it.
Subdivision 6: “This section applies to all antenuptial and postnuptial agreements executed on or after August 1, 2024.” Everything described above is the standard for agreements executed on or after that date. An agreement executed before it is measured by the law that governed it, which this article does not describe. The first question on reviewing an existing agreement is its execution date. The same subdivision adds a saving clause: “An antenuptial agreement entered into before August 1, 2024, shall not be invalidated based on the same sex of the parties to the agreement.”
The drafting checklist
- Enumerate the four rights. Elective share, homestead (§ 524.2-402), exempt property (§ 524.2-403), family allowance (§ 524.2-404) — by name and by section. “All rights in the respective estates” is construed by § 524.2-213 as reaching the elective share alone.
- Add an express written consent to the disposition of the homestead, because § 524.2-402(a) conditions the homestead’s descent on written consent and § 524.2-402(d) supplies its own default.
- Execute at least seven days before the wedding, in the presence of two witnesses, with acknowledgment before an oath-administering officer. Not by attorney-in-fact.
- Document the disclosure, including its basis. Subdivision 1b(a) requires “good faith estimates of the value of their property” and the disclosure of “the basis for these disclosures,” and it cannot be waived.
- Real opportunity for independent counsel before the wedding; actual separate counsel after it. Subdivision 1d(c) makes separate representation a validity condition for any postnuptial agreement.
- Include an unambiguous severability clause, because subdivision 1(e) permits severance only where the agreement unambiguously permits it — and address exchanges and appreciation, because § 518.003, subd. 3b(c) carries nonmarital character into what property is exchanged for and how it grows.
- Check the execution date of any agreement you did not draft. Section 519.11 as described here governs agreements executed on or after August 1, 2024.
The observation
Premarital agreements are usually sold as divorce documents, and § 519.11’s architecture — procedural fairness, substantive fairness, burden-shifting presumptions — reads like a divorce statute. But the event these agreements most often have to survive is not a dissolution. It is a death, followed by a surviving spouse with a lawyer and a copy of chapter 524.
Chapter 524 does not defer to the prenup. It construes it. Section 524.2-213 takes the broadest phrase § 519.11 offers and reads it down to a single right; § 524.2-402 attaches its own written-consent requirement to the one asset the client cares most about. A prenup can be flawlessly executed under § 519.11 — two witnesses, acknowledged, seven days out, schedules attached — and still leave three of the four spousal rights standing.
The fix is not a better recital. It is a list.
Madgett Law, LLC drafts and reviews Minnesota antenuptial and postnuptial agreements as part of an estate plan, including waivers of the elective share, homestead, exempt property and family allowance under Minn. Stat. § 524.2-213, written homestead consents under § 524.2-402, and coordination between a premarital agreement and the client’s will, trust, and business documents. The firm also reviews existing agreements — beginning with the execution date, which decides which version of § 519.11 governs. Send us a message or call 612-470-6529.
Sources: Minn. Stat. § 519.11 (2025), “Antenuptial and Postnuptial Agreements” — full section retrieved and reviewed. Provisions relied on: subd. 1(a) (validity conditioned on the procedural and substantive fairness requirements of subds. 1b and 1c); subd. 1(b), clauses (1) through (4) (what an agreement may do — marital and nonmarital property as defined in § 518.003, subd. 3b; spousal maintenance; rights in the estate of the other as conferred by chapter 524; and the “bar each other of all rights in the respective estates” formula); subd. 1(d) (a duly acknowledged and attested agreement as prima facie proof); subd. 1(e) (severance available only where the agreement unambiguously permits severability); subd. 1b(a) (the definition of “full and fair disclosure,” quoted verbatim, and the sentence prohibiting its waiver); subd. 1b(b), clauses (1) through (5) (the five procedural fairness requirements, block-quoted verbatim); subd. 1b(c) (presumption of enforceability and allocation of the burden of proof at the seven-day line); subd. 1b(d) (“A power of attorney does not satisfy the requirements of paragraph (b), clause (3).”); subd. 1c(a)–(b) (substantive fairness; deviation from statutory standards not itself unconscionable); subd. 1d(a) (postnuptial agreements must comply with the antenuptial requirements except subd. 1b, paragraph (b), clause (5)); subd. 1d(c) (separate legal counsel for each spouse as a validity condition); subd. 1d(d) (presumption of unenforceability where a separation or dissolution action is commenced within two years of execution); subd. 1d(e) (quoted verbatim — the carve-out for a contract, agreement, or waiver entered into after marriage and described in §§ 524.2-201 to 524.2-215, and the § 500.19 conveyance sentence); subd. 2a (amendment or revocation of an antenuptial agreement only by a valid postnuptial agreement); subd. 6 (application to agreements executed on or after August 1, 2024, and the same-sex saving clause). Revisor’s history line for § 519.11 ends at “2024 c 101 art 3 s 1.” Minn. Stat. § 524.2-213 (2025), “Waiver of Right to Elect and of Other Rights” — the entire section (three sentences) was retrieved and is block-quoted verbatim in this article: the four rights that may be waived, the post-marriage formalities (“a written contract, agreement, or waiver signed by the party waiving after fair disclosure”), the “all rights” construction rule, and “Any waiver prior to marriage must be made pursuant to section 519.11.” Minn. Stat. § 518.003, subd. 3b (2025) (definitions of “marital property” and “nonmarital property,” including the presumption that property acquired subsequent to the marriage is marital regardless of how title is held, and the nonmarital clauses (b) “is acquired before the marriage,” (c) exchanges and increases in value, and (e) “is excluded by a valid antenuptial contract” — all quoted verbatim). Minn. Stat. § 524.2-402 (2025) (paragraph (a), descent of the homestead free from any disposition “to which the spouse has not consented in writing or as provided by law”; paragraph (d), deemed consent absent a petition filed in the manner provided in § 524.2-211, paragraph (f)). Minn. Stat. § 524.2-403 (2025) (paragraph (a), clauses (1) and (2) — $15,000 in household furniture, furnishings, appliances and personal effects in excess of security interests, and one automobile without regard to value). Minn. Stat. § 524.2-404 (2025) (paragraph (a), family allowance for one year if the estate is inadequate to discharge allowed claims or 18 months if it is adequate; paragraph (b), personal representative may set the amount “not to exceed $2,300 per month”). Currency: each of §§ 519.11, 524.2-213, 518.003, 524.2-402, 524.2-403 and 524.2-404 was retrieved from the Revisor and none carried a 2026 pending-amendment banner. All statutory text from the Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. This article cites no case law. Three questions are identified rather than answered: whether the “all rights” construction rule in the second sentence of § 524.2-213 applies to a premarital waiver executed under § 519.11; whether the seven-day period in § 519.11, subd. 1b(b)(5) operates as a condition of procedural fairness or only as the burden-shifting line drawn in subd. 1b(c); and what standards govern an antenuptial or postnuptial agreement executed before August 1, 2024, which this article does not describe. This article is general legal information about Minnesota law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship. Whether any particular agreement is valid or waives any particular right depends on its terms, its execution, and the law in force when it was executed. No outcome is promised or implied.