friend getting married - what happens if the worse were to occur?

Mojisola

Malthusian wrote: »

Years in advance of the marriage or years in advance of the first date?

If the former you have to come up with some creative excuses to delay the wedding while you p--- about playing at buried treasure, while if the latter - or the former - it seems to be an awful lot of foresight and planning required when you could just not get married.

Exactly.

Why would you bother getting married at all if you felt the need to deceive your GF/BF to this extent?

cynicaldoc

Let us know how you get on.

Your friend I mean.

Gadfium

If the OP's "friend" really needs to ask the question then the "friend" almost certainly isn't ready for what marriage entails.

The converse to 40% (or whatever the number is) of marriages failing is that 60% don't. The OP's "friend" probably is heading for the 40% simply by the fact that the level of commitment required appears too much. if the "friend" has that sort of doubt at the beginning of the process then I would suggest that those doubts will continue to grow over time.

Instead of trying to find ways if bending the rules of the game (which are enshrined in law), perhaps the "friend" should accept that they need to be in a different game?

cashbackproblems

Mojisola wrote: »

Exactly.

Why would you bother getting married at all if you felt the need to deceive your GF/BF to this extent?

How can you deceive someone of what is rightly yours?

le_loup

cashbackproblems wrote: »

How can you deceive someone of what is rightly yours?

That's exactly why you should not get married. Marriage is, in itself, an act of love and sacrifice - on both sides.
Clearly something you are not capable of.

Mojisola

cashbackproblems wrote: »

How can you deceive someone of what is rightly yours?

If you hide money away and lie to your spouse about how much money you have, you are deceiving them.

TBagpuss

economic wrote: »

Hi


my friend is getting married, he is worried since he has substantially more in savings/investments then his fiance, if the worse were to happen then he would lose half of it.


He doesn't like talking about it or thinking about it but asked me to look into it for him. My friend is also looking to buy a house together with his fiance and would be putting in 80% of the deposit.


he doesn't want to do a prenup or anything and there is absolutely no reason at the moment they would get separated but just wants to get an idea if the worse were to happen.


specific questions are:


- are all assets protected that have been acquired before marriage, from a divorce?

No.

- what about post marriage? I heard assets get split 50-50 for anything earnt after marriage?

No. Where a court is determining what a financial split should be following divorce, the Judge has to determine what is fair and reasonable, taking into account all relevant circumstnaces. A whole range of factors including the length of the marriage, the parties needs and resources and those of any children, contributions made etc etc. the starting point is 50/50 put that can be adjusted in either direction, to ensure that the outcome is fair.

- should my friend make sure the house is in unequal shares according to the deposit paid between the 2? what about mortgage payments - how should this be split?

That is a conversation he needs to have with his fiancee. It would certainly not be unreasonable to have a declaration of trust in place reflecting heir contributions. A pre-nup would be even better. Both are factors which a court can take into account when deciding what is fair and reasonable.

You say

he doesn't want to do a prenup or anything

but it looks as though he does. A pre-nup is simply a way of setting out what you agree should happen if the marriage were to fail, and allows you, to an extent, to protect assets. If he want's to be able to retain assets he built up before the marriage, then he does want a pre-nup. He just doesn't want to admit to himself that that is what he wants.

Pre-Nups are not enforceable in England. That's not the same as them being irrelevant.

And they have a huge advantage in that in order to have a pre-nup, you have to be able to talk to your fiance about money, and about your respective attitudes and expectations about money and about money within marriage. Having those conversations can go one of two ways. Either you fall out because your attitudes and views are too different, in which case you've dodged a bullet and can avoid becoming a divorce statistic by deciding not to get married, or you manage to reach a n agreement that you both feel happy with, in which case you're much less likely to split (financial issues and disputes are a huge factor in a lot of marriage breakdowns) and substantially increased the chances that if the relationship breaks down, you will be able to sort out a financial settlement amicably.

It's true that children change things, and it's always a good idea to review and update a pre-nup or cohabitation agreement regularly so it remains relevant to your situation.

All that said, to all those men worrying about the impact of divorce,comfort yourselves with the knowledge that in the long term, men still tend (statistically speaking) to come out of divorce better than women. You have to look at the situation 5 or 10 years after the divorce as well as 5 minutes afterwards.

kidmugsy

TBagpuss wrote: »

... to all those men worrying about the impact of divorce,comfort yourselves with the knowledge that in the long term, men still tend (statistically speaking) to come out of divorce better than women.

If divorce had ruined me it would be slim consolation that it had ruined her too.

cashbackproblems

Mojisola wrote: »

If you hide money away and lie to your spouse about how much money you have, you are deceiving them.

Or you are protecting yourself if you are in the 40%?

Why does hiding YOUR money mostly pre-marriage when the contract isnt thhere, seen as wrong and not insurance, you can still have a happy marriage

Mojisola

cashbackproblems wrote: »

Or you are protecting yourself if you are in the 40%?

Why does hiding YOUR money mostly pre-marriage when the contract isnt thhere, seen as wrong and not insurance, you can still have a happy marriage

Only while your spouse doesn't know that you are lying.

You could say the same of an affair - as long as the spouse doesn't know, it doesn't do any harm.