You are about to get married or form a civil partnership and your attention is likely to be on the arrangements for the ceremony, the honeymoon, the invitations, the venue and hundreds of other essentials associated with a wedding ceremony. At times like these it may feel completely unromantic to be thinking about drawing up an agreement about how the assets are to be divided should there ever be a separation.
It may seem perverse and inappropriate to discuss and agree terms of a break-up when you are just on the brink of committing to each other and you may feel that really you should be planning your life together. Such a discussion and agreement although difficult, can provide a very strong and stable foundation to the commencement of your life together. For a number of reasons it makes sense to consider and include a prenuptial agreement as part of your wedding or civil partnership planning:
- You will both feel secure that there has been a frank and full disclosure of each other’s assets.
- It will help ease any anxieties either partner may have about the genuineness of the other’s affections, especially in cases where one of them has substantially more wealth than the other.
- A pre-nuptial agreement is a useful instrument to help you avoid all the stress and difficulties involved in negotiating a financial settlement in the event of a break-up and divorce later.
- It gives both partners more control over the assets they are taking into the marriage and how they are to be dealt with in the event of a divorce rather than leaving upto the Family Court to make such divisions.
- A pre-nuptial agreement will enable you to include terms setting out how the assets each individual takes into the marriage are to be divided on divorce, how assets acquired after marriage are to be divided as well as setting out reasonable support to the other in case of separation.
- A prenups is particularly useful if one or either of you have assets and children from an earlier relationships as you can safe guard those assets and specify distribution of the ring-fenced assets to those children.
- A pre-nuptial agreement is also useful in protecting any family assets or business assets as it will allow you to stipulate their distribution to the intended heirs in the event of a divorce, separation or even on death.
- It will also help to lessen the pressure of making the marriage last if it is not working. This is because couples often stay together in a loveless marriage because of fear of economic instability. With a prenuptial agreement, each party will have a clear idea of what assets will revert to them and what spousal support would be available.
- It is wise to include a prenup in such planning because at this stage emotions are calmer and information is clear. It will be easy for each party to list their schedule of assets and agree distribution were they to separate. Should this have to be done later during a break up then hurt, anger and resentment may well mess up the process of settlement and make it difficult to reach an amicable agreement that is also fair and equitable to each other. A messy divorce can cost a lot more in legal fees and other expenses.
- With the high rate of divorce nowadays it make absolute sense to safe guard your assets and have a pre-nuptial agreement drawn up.
Currently, UK law does not provide a formal recognition of a prenuptial agreement, however, following a recent decision by the Supreme Court where a prenup was considered enforceable, it is likely that UK