Is There Any Way To Get Out Of An MSA (Mediated Settlement Agreement)?

Hey folks, Mark Scroggins with Scroggins law group wanted to remind y’all when I’m answering these questions that that y’all have posed, remember that that does not create an attorney client relationship between either myself or Scroggins Law Group and anyone out there. So this is just providing some general thoughts on the questions that y’all pose. After we have settled in mediation, is there any way to get out of an MSA or mediated Settlement Agreement? Gender? Generally, the answer is no. Okay. Basically, the only way you’re going to get out of a mediated settlement agreement is if you can show duress, or if you can show fraud. All right? So duress in Texas is basically if somebody has a gun at your head. And so far, I’ve been in hundreds of mediations, and I’ve never seen anyone hold a gun to anybody’s head and make them sign on the dotted line on an MSA. That’s the beauty of mediation, you are in control, and you get to decide whether or not you actually want to settle, but there no takes the backseat or do overs in mediation. Okay. Once you have signed that mediated settlement agreement, it is a done deal. Now, the other situation that I mentioned is where there is fraud. Okay, so if you can show that there is fraud? Can you undo an MSA? Yes, you can. Okay. Fraud is generally going to be the vehicle that is used to undo an MSA. But understand fraud is not an easy thing to prove, either, if you could have known about something but you didn’t, because you didn’t do discovery that’s on you. Okay. So when your lawyer tells you, we need to do discovery, to make sure that we are prepared for mediation, and you say, No, I want to save a few bucks. And then you go in and settle things and you decide to say, all personal property of the other party remains that person’s personal property, you know, and then you find out that they’ve got a million dollar watch collection that’s on you. All right, you had a chance to find out about that, that is not committing a fraud. committing a fraud would be like doing a sworn inventory and appraisement and not not listing certain assets. So let’s say that your spouse had gotten into some commercial real estate and bought some buildings in Phoenix, for example. And those buildings are never listed on the inventory and appraisement. And you didn’t know about it, because it was not in your name. It was just in your spouse’s name. Is that something that would be grounds to undo and MSA? Very possibly. Okay, that very possibly would be grounds to undo an MSA. But you need to see, is it worth it? All right. So doing some discovery on those on those assets would be really important. And there’s another way you can go about you can go about a division, a post divorce, Division of undivided assets. So there are multiple ways you can go at things. There’s not just one fix for everything. So if you’ve got a question like this, make sure you talk to your attorney about it and they can walk you through the process.