Written by: Farzana Naz, Director / Head of Family
Reviewed by: Saracens Solicitors Family Law Team
Prenuptial agreements are legal contracts entered into before marriage that set out how a couple’s assets, including businesses, property, savings and inheritance, should be divided if the marriage later ends in divorce. While prenuptial agreements are not automatically binding under English law, courts will generally uphold a properly prepared agreement, making prenuptial agreements arrangements one of the most effective tools available to high net worth individuals, business owners and those with family wealth who want certainty rather than relying on a court’s discretion after the fact.
Increasingly, couples treat a prenuptial agreement as a sensible, practical step rather than an unromantic one, particularly where one or both partners already have significant assets, a business, or expectations of future family wealth.
Key Takeaways
- Prenuptial agreements provide valuable certainty over how wealth will be treated on divorce, helping protect pre-marital assets, businesses, investments, inheritance and family wealth that might otherwise become subject to financial claims.
- English courts are likely to uphold a properly prepared prenuptial agreement, particularly where both parties received independent legal advice, exchanged full financial disclosure and signed the agreement well before the wedding.
- Regular reviews help keep a prenuptial agreement effective, ensuring it continues to reflect major life changes such as children, business growth, inheritance, or significant changes in financial circumstances.
Protecting Pre Acquired Wealth
For many clients, the priority is protecting wealth built or acquired before the relationship began, whether that is savings, investments, property or the proceeds of a previous business sale. Without an agreement, this wealth can, over time, become mixed with matrimonial assets and treated as shared, particularly if it is used to fund the couple’s lifestyle, buy the family home, or is not kept clearly separate throughout the marriage, a process the courts describe as matrimonialisation.
A well drafted prenuptial agreement records what each person brought into the marriage and confirms how it should be treated on divorce, providing far greater certainty than relying on the court to unpick years of shared finances after separation.
Safeguarding Business Assets
Entrepreneurs and business owners frequently use prenuptial agreements to protect a company from being drawn into a future divorce settlement, particularly where the business predates the relationship, involves other shareholders such as business partners or family members, or represents the couple’s main source of future income. The agreement can set out that the business, and any future growth in its value attributable to one spouse’s efforts, should remain outside the pool of assets to be shared.
This is especially valuable where other shareholders are involved, since a poorly protected divorce can create pressure to sell shares or disrupt a company that other people also depend on. For a fuller picture of the risks involved, see our guide to divorce for business owners and entrepreneurs.
Preserving Family Wealth and Inheritance
Many high net worth individuals are not simply protecting their own wealth but wealth that belongs to a wider family, whether that is an expected inheritance, a family trust, or assets held for future generations. A prenuptial agreement can record that inherited or family wealth is intended to remain separate, reducing the risk of it being treated as a shared matrimonial asset, an issue explored in more detail in Protecting Inherited Wealth on Divorce and Trusts and Divorce Explained.
Families with generational wealth increasingly ask that a prenuptial agreement be signed before a beneficiary marries, precisely because it offers far more certainty than hoping the courts will later agree that family assets should be excluded from the sharing principle.
When Courts Uphold Prenups
Following the Supreme Court decision in Radmacher v Granatino, English courts will generally give effect to a prenuptial agreement provided both parties entered into it freely, understood its implications, and it was not unfair to hold them to it given the circumstances at the time of divorce. In practice, this means an agreement is far more likely to be upheld where both spouses received independent legal advice, made full and honest financial disclosure to each other, and signed the agreement well in advance of the wedding rather than under time pressure.
Courts will also consider whether the agreement still meets each spouse’s needs and those of any children at the time of divorce, meaning an agreement that leaves one party with nothing at all is more vulnerable to challenge than one that provides a reasonable, if unequal, outcome.
Best Practice Before Marriage
To give a prenuptial agreement the best chance of being upheld, both parties should instruct their own solicitors, exchange full and honest financial disclosure, and sign the agreement at least twenty eight days before the wedding, allowing enough time to demonstrate that neither party was pressured. The agreement should also be reviewed and updated over time, particularly after major life events such as the birth of a child, a significant change in wealth, or the acquisition of a new business, since a document that no longer reflects reality is easier to challenge.
Couples who are already married but never signed a prenuptial agreement can consider a postnuptial agreement instead, which serves a similar function and is treated by the courts in a broadly similar way.
Reviewing and Updating Your Agreement
A prenuptial agreement should not simply be signed and filed away. Reviewing it periodically, particularly after significant life events such as the birth of a child, a change in career, or the acquisition or sale of a business, helps ensure it continues to reflect the couple’s actual circumstances.
Where circumstances have changed significantly since the agreement was signed, a postnuptial agreement can be used to update the arrangement without needing to unwind the original document entirely, giving both spouses continued certainty as their lives develop.
It is also worth considering how an agreement should deal with future children, changes in career, or a significant increase or decrease in wealth after the wedding, since building in a degree of flexibility, reviewed periodically rather than fixed forever, tends to make an agreement both more robust if challenged and more genuinely fair if circumstances change substantially over the course of a long marriage.
Frequently Asked Questions / Questions & Answers
Are prenuptial agreements legally binding in England?
Not automatically, but courts will generally uphold a prenuptial agreement that both parties entered into freely, with independent legal advice and full financial disclosure, provided it does not leave either spouse or any children without their needs being met. Reviewing the agreement periodically helps ensure it continues to reflect your actual circumstances.
How much notice do we need before the wedding?
Signing the agreement at least twenty eight days before the wedding is considered best practice, since it helps demonstrate that neither party was pressured into signing close to the ceremony. This timing requirement is one of the easiest and most important steps to get right.
Can a prenuptial agreement protect a business I already own?
Yes. It can record that a business owned before the marriage, and future growth attributable to one spouse’s efforts, should remain outside any future settlement, subject to the general fairness requirements the courts apply. Growth attributable to a spouse’s efforts during the marriage may still need to be considered separately, depending on how the agreement is drafted.
Do both people need their own solicitor?
Yes, independent legal advice for both parties is one of the strongest factors supporting an agreement being upheld later, since it shows both people understood what they were signing. Independent advice also protects both parties if the agreement is ever challenged later.
What if we are already married?
A postnuptial agreement can achieve a similar outcome for couples who are already married, and is assessed by the courts using broadly the same principles as a prenuptial agreement. This makes a postnuptial agreement a useful option for couples who did not sign one before the wedding.
What happens if my financial circumstances change significantly after we marry?
A prenuptial agreement can be reviewed and updated through a postnuptial agreement if your circumstances change materially, helping ensure the arrangement continues to reflect a fair and realistic position for both spouses over time.
Do prenuptial agreements work the same way for international couples?
International elements add complexity, since a prenuptial agreement recognised as binding in one country may be treated differently elsewhere, so couples with connections to more than one jurisdiction should take advice in each relevant country to ensure their agreement offers consistent protection wherever it might later be relied upon.
Discuss Prenuptial Agreements London with Our Team
Whether you are planning to marry or want to record an agreement during your marriage, our family team can prepare a prenuptial or postnuptial agreement designed to protect what matters most to you.
Call us on +44 (0)20 3588 3500, or visit our Family Law service page to find out more about how Saracens Solicitors can help.
Saracens Solicitors, Thanet House, 231 and 232 Strand, London, WC2R 1DA
