Do we need to get a Prenuptial Agreement?

74jax

davidwood123 wrote: »

If things turned nasty ( possible affair ) your views on the situation could change too and you make want revenge by hitting him in the pocket


It's happened before, will happen again and can happen to anyone.....even you

Completely agree. I'm a firm believer that no-one knows the future, what will happen or how we will react. We only know now.

m.johnson

Thank you for your responses guys, they are appreciated.

justme111

Can you search doing an agreement like that without solicitor ? Given that those agreements seem to be of advisory power to judge , not binding I would have thought that using solicitor for them not going to change much. Or shopping around for a cheaper quote. Or forget the idea of agreement as the default position in early years split seem to coincide with what you want and if you split after 20 years your agreement likely not going to be taken into account , solicitor or not. If you live together long time house that is now yours probably will be split 50/50 unless your husband agrees for it to be left with you. I suppose what I would do if I were you is to use financial benefits of living together by making savings so that if split happens you could pay him his share without selling the house. This and documenting value of the house now so that it would be easier to work out what part of it is his later on if needed. I am not sure what you mean by saying you will move into house on his name - would you keep existing house on your name only and live with him in the house on his name for which he pays mortgage which would be earmarked as his only ?
Re Fbaby's statement about risk and commitment - not sure I would subscribe to the opinion that for commitment to be shown there has to be risk taken.

pphillips

If I did not want my future spouse to get their hands on my money or property in the event of divorce I would not waste my time on a prenup, I would look to set up a trust to protect my assets instead.

FBaby

Re Fbaby's statement about risk and commitment - not sure I would subscribe to the opinion that for commitment to be shown there has to be risk taken.

Of course there doesn't have to be a risk to be commitment, but I don't believe you can have true commitment if you are refusing to face the risk, if there is one.

justme111

What about trying to minimise it?:)

justme111

I see what are you getting at. There is minimising and there is minimising. I can imagine many situations in which I would have found minimising the risk offputting and excessive. This one does not look like that to me, I suppose there is an area where most of us would say it is reasonable and extremes of both carelessness and calculation which only a few of us would have believed to be appropriate.

firebubble

As others have said, prenups are persuasive and not cast-iron, however, I think you are sensible to protect your assets. I know of quite a few examples of marriages where she has never been married and has assets (flat, pensions, savings etc), and he doesn't (maybe because he's had a family, so on his first divorce the house now houses his ex wife and children, maybe because he's a bit irresponsible...). She marries him in good faith thinking that they will be together for life, and that this is finally her happy ending... The marriage ends after a few years, there are no children, and on divorce, the assets are split 50/50. This leaves her with a huge hole in her pension saving, and the flat has to be sold to give him half. She now finds that even though she has a good deposit, because of the crazy property market, it's not enough to buy a similar flat to what she had, therefore she's back to renting/flat sharing....

The starting point in a divorce is that all assets owned by the parties are marital assets and therefore are split equally on divorce, unless there are circumstances (ie children) or evidence (ie a pre-nup) which should alter this. This means that from the moment you get married, he is deemed to own half of your assets, and you own half of his. A pre-nup sets out what the parties agree before the wedding should not be considered marital assets. It doesn't necessarily need to specify how things will be split on divorce, just what should be disregarded from the overall pot.

In order to be valid, each party needs their own lawyer to advise them and it needs to be signed at least twelve weeks before the date of the wedding (to avoid any suggestion of coercion). The £750 plus vat figure sounds about right, and he will need also to get his own lawyer (make sure that his lawyer is of equivalent standing to yours ie if you instruct a lawyer, don't let him settle for legal advice from his mate or the CAB - he needs a proper lawyer). Bear in mind that by signing this he's giving up the rights to £30k plus half the equity of your property....you want this as watertight as you can make it.

Obviously, the longer the time between the signing of the pre-nup and any divorce means the pre-nup is less valid (you could agree to renew it every few years to avoid this, but generally, if you're married for years, after a certain point it all becomes irrelevant - just don't expect to dust it off after 20 years and expect a judge to follow it.

It also won't necessarily be followed by a judge if there are children, for example, because the Court needs to ensure that the children are housed and have enough for their needs, and so won't follow a pre-nup where to do so means this objective can't be met.

From what you've said above, you would want any assets under the pre-nup to be very cleanly delineated, so you could cover your house with the pre-nup, then jointly buy a new property together (rather than have 'his and hers'), which is the marital property. Then you could take any profit from renting your property and use that to help pay off the marital property (with him also contributing what he can). Then if you ever get divorced, you both have an asset which you are involved in and which can be split, and you have kept your original property completely separate. You should bear in mind that putting a property just in your name is not a watertight way of protecting it - it is still marital property, and particularly if he lives in it and/or does lots of work on it, this is the sort of argument that can mean that a judge decides he should have a share of it if you split regardless of whose name is on the deeds.

Another point is this thing about providing him with money to rent somewhere - how long is that going to continue? For the rest of his life? For 10 years? Until he meets someone else (I wouldn't advise specifying this as it's too vague!) and to rent what? Bedsit? Mansion? This is the sort of arrangement that judges don't like because it's preferable to have a clean break if you split, which means you giving him a lump sum in lieu of this constant rent...and how would you fund this lump sum? And even if you specify a lump sum, what happens if in time, this is not enough? That's why it would be better if you both have an appreciating asset (ie a property) which you agree to split if you split.

Having said all this, I hope it works out and that in twenty years time, you dig out the pre nup and both laugh about it, as you sell your property and your joint property to retire and go off into the sunset together!!