Prenups

This Solicitors Journal article is well worth a read for those whose marriage arrangements include a prenuptial agreement.

Since the landmark Radmacher case there have been other court cases which have clarified how Radmacher is applied in practice.

Luckwell v Limata

In this case there was a prenuptial agreement where the parties had three children and the effect of the prenuptial agreement would leave the husband in a ‘predicament of real need’.

The wife had an allowance of £81,000 p.a. and £7m of assets in her own name. The husband  was on the minimum wage, and had no property.

A prenuptial agreement excluded the wife’s separate property. The Judge rejected the husband’s contention that ‘needs’ were a trump card to the agreement, but stated they could ‘outweigh the fact of an agreement in this a particular case’,

He awarded the husband approximately £900,000 for the purchase of a property to live in and for the children to stay in during contact with him, with 45 per cent of the value to revert back to the wife upon the children attaining the age of 22.

L v M

This case involved a 5 year separation, after signing a separation agreement. The husband had agreed to pay the wife £2m to the wife in the event of divorce.

The judge found in favour of the wife and made a specific finding that, as the agreement itself had stated that both parties had taken independent legal advice, on the balance of probabilities either the husband had ‘at least some legal advice as to the financial consequences of divorce’ at the time, or he had ‘ample opportunity’ to take such advice.

Gray v Work

This case involved arguments in relation to the effect of a prenuptial agreement from Texas. The husband had a personal fortune of £144m . He proposed that the wife should receive $71,000. There was a Texas agreement signed in 2000. That agreement, which had separated their assets, had been related to his renunciation of US citizenship for tax purposes. The court held it was ‘irrelevant’ that a Texas court would not have made orders against the ‘partitioned property’. The agreement was only relevant to the extent that it excluded the community of property regime in Texas and  did not preclude the wife from making a full financial claim in England.

Experience shows that the most efficient and experienced fixed fee solicitors and lawyers are in London, despite extra overheads.

The Central Family Court, previously the Principal Registry in London is more suitable, especially for wives, for complex or middle and upper-class divorces. The judges are far use to what other County Court might consider to be ‘high’ awards of capital and maintenance.

London judges in particular are very experienced and sophisticated when it comes to investigating assets, especially overseas companies and trusts, and anecdotally especially for wives.

London has been called the wife’s divorce capital of the world.

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