Pre-Nuptial Agreements

Pre-Nuptial Agreements: an ‘Oven-Ready’ Solution to a Pressing Problem? A House of Lords Debate

Pre-Nuptial Agreements: an ‘Oven-Ready’ Solution to a Pressing Problem? A House of Lords Debate

Late last month, Baroness Deech brought a motion in the House of Lords, ‘That this House takes note of the law relating to prenuptial agreements’. The debate came against the backdrop of Baroness Deech having (of course) long pursued financial remedies reform through her Divorce (Financial Provision) Bill. She has

SV v AV [2024] EWFC 86 (B)

Judgment date: 07 February 2024 https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWFC/OJ/2024/86.html DJ Ashworth. Final financial remedy hearing involving the weight to be attached to a pre-nuptial agreement, non-matrimonial and matrimonial property, and the computation of assets. Facts Wife (aged 42) and husband (aged 52) married

HJB v WPB: Beware the Preliminary Issue

HJB v WPB: Beware the Preliminary Issue

In BN v MA [2013] EWHC 4250 (Fam) Mostyn J observed: ‘[24] … In Granatino v Radmacher the Supreme Court analysed very closely the nature of nuptial agreements. They pointed out that nuptial agreements come in numerous shapes and forms and can be entered into at any point before, during or

What Is a ‘Predicament of Real Need’?

What Is a ‘Predicament of Real Need’?

In Radmacher (Formerly Granatino) v Granatino [2010] 2 FLR 1900 at [81] Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers said that of the three strands identified in White v White [2000] 2 FLR 981 and Miller/McFarlane [2006] 1 FLR 1186 it was needs and compensation which could most readily render it

Pre-nuptial Agreements – A Good Route to Autonomy?

Pre-nuptial Agreements – A Good Route to Autonomy?

Every family lawyer knows that the validity of pre-nuptial agreements (pre-nups) is at the mercy of the judge’s discretion, yet a freely entered agreement that is not unfair will be given decisive weight.[[1]] This authority stems from the landmark case of Radmacher v Granatino [2010] UKSC 42, where

Do Not Sign It Unless You Intend to Be Bound By Its Terms

Do Not Sign It Unless You Intend to Be Bound By Its Terms

This is often the wording we see on the front of all well drafted pre-nuptial agreements. So why do clients sign them if they intend to try wriggle out of them at the time of a divorce? In the case of MN v AN [2023] EWHC 613 (Fam) **the wife

Pre-Nuptial Agreement Drafting: Is the Profession Earning ‘an Honest Shilling’?

Pre-Nuptial Agreement Drafting: Is the Profession Earning ‘an Honest Shilling’?

Introduction In the same year when the Law Commission published its report Matrimonial Property, Needs and Agreements and recommended that there be ‘statutory confirmation of the contractual validity of marital agreements’ (1.32), Coleridge J, in his address at the 2014 Family Law Conference stated: ‘I am convinced that the