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Know your Pink Law: 2
Pre-nuptial agreement
Our second Pink Law feature looks at pre-nuptial agreements
Russell Jones & Walker is a national firm of solicitors that has been upholding the legal rights of individuals for more than eighty years.
As partners of Stonewall, and through their work with the Terrence Higgins Trust, they are acutely aware of the specific legal issues faced by the gay community.
In the first of this regular Pride Life series, a leading solicitor from Russell Jones & Walker addresses an issue relevant to the gay community today.
Are pre-nuptial agreements legally binding?
A pre-nup agreement, or pre-civil partnership agreement as it is sometimes called, is an agreement or contract that two individuals enter into before getting hitched. The agreement specifies how the assets will be split up if the relationship breaks down.
In the UK, this type of agreement is not currently seen as being binding. Ultimately, if a decision cannot be reached between you and your partner, then the divorce courts have the last word in the division of the assets.
The courts are increasingly seeing them as highly influential when making a decision on how to divvy up the assets. However, the court could ignore any pre-nup if it is thought that it was in any way unreasonable to either of the parties involved. Some predict that the law in this area may change in the future, so that these type of agreements will become binding.
There are other ways of protecting your assets. For example, you could enter into a deed with your partner setting out what proportion of your house you each own and what steps you would have to take if either of you wanted to sell the house. This is more likely to protect your assets, should the unthinkable happen.
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