North Carolina Learn
Separation agreements: private contracts with one hard formality
A separation agreement is a private contract that can settle property, support, and children's issues — and the statute imposes one hard formality: it must be in writing and acknowledged by both parties before a certifying officer. Incorporation into a court judgment changes how it is enforced.
The honesty note
An unacknowledged agreement fails the statute's own formality, and incorporation-versus-contract enforcement is a consequential drafting choice — review before signing, not after.
Authority locked — retrieved from the hash-pinned corpus
Do it with the tools
Legal information, not legal advice. Statements about county or district practice defer to your county's local rules and the clerk — where this platform has no verified county data, it says so instead of guessing.