By Neta, founder of SortMyDivorce · Updated
This is the document that governs the rest of your financial relationship with this person. Read it properly, once, before signing — not afterwards, when reading it changes nothing. This guide is for the United States. In Canada the equivalent document is a separation agreement, with different requirements — see the companion guide. Note also that in US usage "separation agreement" most often refers to employment severance, which is why searching that term returns the wrong results entirely.
| What it is | The contract settling property, support, and often parenting, which is typically incorporated into the divorce judgment. |
|---|---|
| The precondition | Complete disclosure. Do not sign while anything is outstanding. |
| Independent counsel | Each party should have their own lawyer. One lawyer cannot properly advise both sides. |
| The distinction that matters later | Which terms can be modified after judgment and which cannot. Ask before signing. |
| Tax | Support, property transfers and retirement division have different tax consequences. Two equal-looking deals can differ materially after tax. |
| Retirement accounts | Dividing these usually requires a separate court order in addition to the agreement. |
| Enforcement | The agreement should say what happens if someone does not comply. |
| Time pressure | An expiry is a negotiating device far more often than a real constraint. |
Keeping track of dates like these across a stack of letters is exactly what SortMyDivorce does — start a free trial, no card needed.
Before anything else: compare the draft, clause by clause, against the offer you accepted and the correspondence that recorded it.
Drift between what was negotiated and what was drafted is common and is not usually deliberate. It is also far easier to fix before signature than after, and it is the single most productive hour you will spend on the document.
If you have kept a record of the offers — what was proposed, when, in what words — this takes twenty minutes. If you have not, it takes an evening with a folder of PDFs, and it is still worth it.
Negotiation covers the headline terms: who gets what, how much support, what the schedule is. The agreement contains a great deal more, and the parts that were never discussed are disproportionately the parts that cause problems.
The release. Most agreements involve waiving the right to bring further claims. Understand exactly what is being released, by whom, and whether anything is carved out. Releases are routinely broader than the negotiation was.
Enforcement provisions. What happens if someone does not pay, does not sign a transfer, does not complete a sale. Interest on arrears. Who bears the cost of enforcement. An agreement silent on all of this leaves you relying on a fresh court application.
Dispute resolution. Whether disagreements go to mediation, arbitration or court, and who pays.
Indemnities. Who is responsible if a joint debt goes unpaid, or if a tax liability arises later.
Life insurance to secure support. Common, frequently overlooked, and hard to add later.
What triggers a review. Remarriage, cohabitation, retirement, a material change in income. Whether these are addressed, and how.
The most common defect in a settlement document is a clause that states an outcome without a mechanism.
"The house will be sold" is an intention. A mechanism says who lists it, within what period, at a price determined how, what happens if the parties cannot agree on an agent or a price, how proceeds are calculated, and what one party may do if the other will not cooperate.
Every "to be agreed", "as soon as practicable", "at a fair price" and "reasonable" in a settlement agreement is a future dispute in a document that was supposed to end them. Go through and mark each one, then ask whether it can be made specific.
This is the question people most wish they had asked.
Broadly — and this varies substantially by state and by issue — terms concerning children tend to remain modifiable on a change of circumstances, because a court retains jurisdiction over children's interests. Property division is typically final once made. Spousal support may or may not be modifiable depending on the state, the terms, and whether the parties expressly made it non-modifiable.
Ask your lawyer, term by term: can this be changed later, by whom, and on what basis? Do it before signing. A term you assumed was flexible and is not is a genuinely serious problem.
Verification note. The general statements above about modifiability were not verified against any state's law and are included as a prompt for the question, not as an answer. State law differs substantially. Ask your own lawyer.
Two areas where signing without advice is expensive.
Tax treatment. Support, property transfers and the division of retirement assets can have very different consequences for each party. Two settlements with identical headline values can be materially different after tax. This is a specific question worth putting to your lawyer or an accountant before signature, not after.
Retirement accounts. Dividing employer retirement plans generally requires a separate court order in addition to the settlement agreement, prepared to the plan administrator's requirements. This is a technical step that is frequently left until later and then goes wrong. Ask: who is preparing it, when, at whose cost, and what happens if the plan rejects it?
Each party should have their own lawyer. Not the same lawyer, and not one lawyer who drafted the agreement and then "explained it" to the other side.
This matters for you even if you are the one with counsel. An agreement signed by an unrepresented spouse who did not fully understand it is a more fragile agreement, and fragility is not in your interest. If your spouse will not get advice, discuss with your lawyer how that should be handled and recorded in the document.
Verification note. The general statements above about modifiability were not verified against any state's law and are included as a prompt for the question, not as an answer. State law differs substantially. Ask your own lawyer.
Verification note. Nothing in this guide was verified against the law of any particular state. The statements about modifiability, retirement account division and execution requirements are general characterisations included to prompt the right questions, not statements of law.
Requirements for execution — signatures, witnesses, notarisation, acknowledgment — vary by state. Your lawyer will tell you what yours requires. Do not improvise this.
Generally no. Once concluded, an agreement is binding, and regret is not a ground to undo it. Narrow routes exist — fraud, duress, material non-disclosure — but they are difficult, expensive and not a safety net.
That is the situation where independent advice matters most and is skipped most often. A document you both wanted is worth nothing if it turns out to be unenforceable or if it does not say what you thought.
Ask for enough time to take advice. That request is always reasonable, and refusal is informative.
Raise it before signing. Whether an agreement silent on an issue precludes a later claim depends on the release wording and your state's law — which is exactly why the release deserves a careful read.
Last reviewed August 2026. Researched and written by Neta, founder of SortMyDivorce. I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice — laws, fees and forms change, so please confirm current details with your court’s official website or a local family lawyer.
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