Pre-nuptial or pre-marriage agreements

dcrooz

Pre-nuptial or pre-marriage agreements

I'm getting married in a months time and my future father in law has requested that I sign a pre-nuptial agreement. He's doing this to safeguard (or ring fence as he puts it) a trust that he has set up for his three daughters, as well as other investments such as property etc in the unfortunate and unlikely event that our marriage does not work out.

It's all rather odd but I'm happy to go ahead with it as I'm not interested in her trust or other investments.

I wanted to know if anyone had any experience in these matters. As far as I understand these pre-nuptial agreements are not legally binding in the UK at the moment and as such are more of a statement of intent but I would really appreciate any advice on this.

Many thanks in advance for your help.

dcrooz

Counting_Pennies_2

We did ours because we were buying a property together and hadn't plans to marry at the time, so at the same time as buying our property we wrote our wills and a living together agreement.

Within that we stated what amount of money we were each putting into the property and what percentage of the mortgage was being paid by who. We wrote in that if we split up what amount of time we would be allowed to stay in the property until it had to be sold and what percentage would be split between us.

We also put in a bit that if we married and split after that, that we would have a 50/50 split at that point.

Hth

dcrooz

Do you remember how much you had to pay in legal fees? And did you have to use seperate solicitors?

Thanks

margaretclare

Hi

I think this was already discussed at great length in another thread - maybe you could find it.

Aunty Margaret

dcrooz

I did try to look but didn't find anything - If you say that there's already a post then I'll search more exhaustively!

Thanks,

dcrooz

Js_Other_Half

Here is the link :-
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=50670&highlight=prenuptial


hth

dcrooz

Thanks - just been through the whole thread, very informative it is too.

I will go ahead with this although it does feel very odd drawing up your divorce settlement before you're even married. Doesn't really fit in with my romantic spirit. But I guess being the one with less to lose I would be more inclined to feel that way.

In the words of Lennon and McCartney "All You Need Is Love"

Lillibet_2

With my first husband I had a deed of trust on our house, as I had invested a lot of capital in it & he just payed 50% of the mortgage. This meant that in the event of a divorce or even just selling the house, I got back my original investment after settlement of any mortgage secured on the house but before any profit was divided up.

Unlike a pre-nuptuial agreement, this was legally binding when we got divorced.
HTH

nearlyrich

What does your fiancee think of her dad asking you for this agreement?

It seems a strange basis for a happy marriage.

Good luck.

dcrooz

Good question.

She kind of agrees that money that he's earned to provide for his daughters (and their kids too hopefully) should be safeguarded. I agree with the principle and am not interested in the money although it doesn't make me stop thinking that it's odd and she knows this. Her father is very meddling and exerts too much influence over us compared to other parental/familial sources.

My fiancee's father left his wife (my fiancees mother) after 3 or 4 years of marriage (for his secretary - they are still together after 21 years incidentally). He left her their house and some money and he went on to become very successful whilst the mother, and her partner often struggled for money and frittered away the proceeds from the sale of the house after moving to a new area and renting initially. They basically have the financial acumen of a goat and have nothing now. My future father in law however completely blames his ex-wifes partner for wasting all the money from the house. I think this is why he is over protective about his daughters. Personally I think he's trying to convince himself that he'd set her up for life (which they wasted) to make himself feel less guilty about leaving her.

This situation scares my fiancee and she wants to insure herself against that ever happening to her.

Sorry for the life story, these things are never straightforward. The funny thing is that I know he likes me a lot but he's just a practically minded, shrewd, and financially astute which are not words that I'd necessarily use to describe myself! He's also (re-assuringly!) stated that he's going to insist on his other 2 daughters having to go through the same process regardless of who they marry.

Thanks for listening!

dcrooz

Counting_Pennies_2

dcrooz wrote:

Do you remember how much you had to pay in legal fees? And did you have to use seperate solicitors?

Thanks

It was all put in together with the wills and house buying fees, so haven't a clue I'm afraid.

In respect of the rest of the threads and feeling it was strange, I did at first think that it was a little strange to be doing it. But it does make sense to calmly think about all eventualities when you are about to start out in life together. That way you can be sure that if anything ever does happen later on down the line at least it has all been agreed fairly.

My advice would be to make sure the agreement is fair. It might well be that there is a big trust fund, but what about everything that is going into the pot from yourself, make sure that is all included.