767.375.Effect on transfers at death.
Subch. IV: Annulment, Divorce, and Legal Separation · Last amended 2005 · Current through 2025 Wisconsin Act 247 · Last verified September 8, 2026
Full Text of Section 767.375
Official Notes
Wisconsin prints certain labelled notes with the statute — effective-date notes, cross-references, and notes of the Judicial Council. They are reproduced verbatim below. The unlabelled digest of court decisions that the Legislative Reference Bureau prints after them is annotation rather than statute, and is not reproduced.
NOTE: 1991 Wis. Act 301 contains extensive legislative council notes.
Amendment History
Wisconsin prints each section’s legislative history as a single “History” line naming every act that created or amended it, and every renumbering. It is reproduced verbatim below.
History: 1991 a. 301; 1997 a. 188; 2005 a. 216; 2005 a. 443 s. 119; Stats. 2005 s. 767.375.
Plain-English Summary
Marital property agreements often carry provisions that operate at death — a nontestamentary transfer to a designated person or trust, or a promise that one or both spouses will make a particular disposition in a will. A divorce that left those standing would produce exactly the result nobody intended.
So, unless the judgment provides otherwise, a judgment of annulment, divorce or legal separation revokes them: both the provision that property passes without probate to a designated person, trust or other entity, and the provision that a spouse will make a particular disposition in a will or other governing instrument.
Where that subsection does not apply, revocation of revocable transfers at death — to the other former spouse, or to that spouse's relatives, under an instrument executed before the judgment — is governed by the probate statute instead. The two provisions between them are meant to leave no gap.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does a Wisconsin divorce cancel my marital property agreement's death provisions?
Unless the judgment provides otherwise, yes — both a provision that property passes without probate to a designated person, trust or entity, and a provision that a spouse will make a particular disposition in a will.
What about a beneficiary designation naming my former spouse?
Where this section's first subsection does not apply, revocation of revocable transfers at death to a former spouse or their relatives under an instrument executed before the judgment is governed by the probate statute.
Can we keep the death provisions?
Yes — the revocation applies unless the judgment provides otherwise.