Browse our Pre-nuptial Agreements and Living Together Agreements Services
Pre-Nuptial Agreements and Living Together Agreements are increasing in popularity and are no longer the preserve of the super-rich.
A landmark legal case - Radmacher v Granatino [2010] UKSC 42 - has made it easier for these agreements to be enforced. It sets out the principles to be applied when a court is deciding what weight should be given to agreement between the husband and wife made before the marriage.
Pre-nuptial Agreements
People tend to be older these days when they marry (on average 35 ½ years old) and have established careers, inherited wealth or be entering a second marriage. Getting a ‘pre-nup’ can protect your assets should the marriage not work out. The validity of a Pre-Nuptial Agreement depends on it complying with the guidelines set out by the Supreme Court which are essentially about fairness.
A Pre-Nuptial Agreement:
- should not be signed at the last minute before the wedding,
- each party most have independent advice,
- there must be adequate financial disclosure and
- the terms must be essentially fair to the disadvantaged party, rather than unfair. This may include the need for provision to support any child of the marriage.
If there is not time properly to prepare a Pre-Nuptial Agreement before the wedding, it is possible to sign a post-nuptial agreement after the marriage has taken place and it can be legally binding in the same way as the pre-nup.
Living Together Agreement
The legal position for unmarried co-habitants who go their separate ways is very unsatisfactory. Unfairness can arise at the end of a long relationship where the parties never married, and the assets are held in one name. That’s why a Living Together Agreement (sometimes referred to as a cohabitation agreement) can be extremely helpful. It sets out the arrangements for finances, property and children if you split up, become ill or die.
A Living Together Agreement may be well worth considering for instance where one party is moving into the home already owned by the other. It enables you to formalise all the financial aspects of your living arrangements with your partner and provides clarity if the relationship doesn’t work out and couples need to ask a court to decide what should happen to any assets. It is a way of setting out the couples intentions when they started to cohabit, and avoids the need for a Judge (often some years down the line) to try to decide that.
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