More information on Pre-Marital/Pre-Civil Partnership Agreements

More and more people are entering in to contracts to try and regulate the division of their assets after the breakdown of their marriage (“Pre-Nup”) or civil partnership (“Pre-Cip”).

Unromantic? A difficult subject to raise? Well, maybe – but if you cannot discuss difficult issues like this when you are happy and in love, how much more difficult do you think it will be to discuss them if it all goes wrong? It is often not the ending of the relationship that causes the arguments, it is the arguments that follow in relation to money that creates the deep routed bitterness that will inevitably impact on you and any children caught in the crossfire.

Putting yourself in the hands of the court to decide how your assets should be divided can be a costly, lengthy and risky business. The court has a wide discretion to impose a fair solution, and we all have very different ideas of what fairness entails.

A properly drafted agreement can ease the bitterness on separation and, if court proceedings do follow, can influence the court’s thinking when face with deciding what is fair. A properly drafted agreement means one entered in to willingly by both parties and with the benefit of legal advice.

They are not just for the fabulously wealthy – they are particularly useful for second marriages or civil partnerships where there are children from an earlier relationship to consider – and for those who want to minimize the arguments if the worst should happen. Is that you?

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