Fiancé asking for a prenup

@prh47bridge when I was checking my facts, not being an expert, I found a case in my jurisdiction where the disposal of a house to another family member from 18 YEARS before the divorce was subject to clawback. There were additional factors of fraud etc, but aren’t there always 🤷🏻‍♀️

The courts in England and Wales have the powers to set aside any transaction intended to remove assets from the equation.

I respect your opinion and am not suggesting you don’t know the difference between public and proprietary, but family law cases show that it does happen. I’m not in England, but in my jurisdiction there are clawback provisions in the relevant legislation to address such situations.

I’m familiar with the distinction between a listed company and a privately owned company. No shareholder - whether they are another shareholder’s parent or not - would voluntarily agree to have their shareholding diluted substantially in favour of another, just like they wouldn’t give away their house or any other valuable asset to a new girlfriend. It’s just a ridiculous hypothesis and would not happen.

But this isn’t a public or large proprietary company; Dave’s parents are the only other shareholders; they never liked his wife and they think Debbie is just lovely. Their golden boy can do no wrong so they’re happy to support the change to the share structure.

Hiding assets in the name of a new partner, a friend or a family member is common.

You don’t seem to understand much about how share issues work. For any company to issue new shares to an “investor”, the investor has to actually invest money AND there has to be a resolution passed to issue those shares. Commonly, existing shareholders will not vote in favour of this resolution because it will dilute their own shareholding. Your hypothetical scenario is preposterous and would never happen.

You misread my post. I said Debbie is the only shareholder with that class of shares. I said clearly that there are 4 shareholders - Dave, Debbie and his parents .

Dave hasn’t “signed over” his shares , there has been an issue of new shares with changed rights assigned to each class.

Debbie isn’t his new partner, they have been having an affair for years. they are getting married as soon as the divorce goes through .

He didn’t give her the shares, that would potentially be a breach of the settlements rules. He gave her money ( which he borrowed on personal credit cards that Aquea paid off ) and Debbie invested in the business and got a different class of shares in return.

The fact that you think this is bizarre or unusual is troubling . I notice you ignore my point about Cms. There are ten of thousands of non resident parents ( nearly all fathers ) manipulating their income to avoid supporting their own children .

Divorce court are full of wealthy men hiding their assets.

This thread is so informative serious no sarcasm I

@N0Tfunnyalso, you talk about Debbie having a preferential class of shares, and Dave having given up his right to capital but retaining right to income (i.e. from dividends) but you also say that Debbie is now the only shareholder. If Debbie were the only shareholder then (a) there would only be one class of share, and (b) Dave’s only right to “income” would be as an employee, because he wouldn’t own any shares.

Apart from the serious unlikelihood that anyone (man or woman) would sign over all their shares in the company they own to a new partner in the process of divorcing the previous wife they had never given any shares to, your example which involves family members investing their own money for “shares” but then the new gf is the only shareholder, is nonsense. No one throws money into someone else’s divorce so that their new gf can walk off with it.

I say this only to illustrate to anyone who may read this thread, that this bizarre proposed possible “outcome” is not a reason not to consider agreeing the terms of a prenup.

How old are you ? As in do you have time for children if you split with this man

I do get the pre nup due to his business but I also thought these didn’t stand up in court

those who have money /property /business do need to protect their assets

maybe add in it that if he’s unfaithful you get x amount

My point was that if PE investors wouldn’t require that, then nor would his own family.

Perhaps you’re approaching this on the assumption that a restructure such as you propose would be reversible by the husband post-divorce. It wouldn’t be. Once equity capital is restructured, the new owners of each share class own those shares. Perhaps your hypothesis is that post-divorce, everyone would just agree to put the shares back how they were before? That would be evident from required filings with Companies House and it would therefore be evidence that this was a mechanism in place for the divorce. That would enable the OP to return to court with this evidence and have the financial order overturned.

You might write a good screenplay, but this is not a real life scenario.

I mean I actually don't take that as an insult, at least fairies are romantic!

Well if you’d rather ignore facts and neglect your financial wellbeing in favour of the idea of romance that’s entirely up to you, but I’m not sure why anyone would take such a foolish approach. It’s not robotic or charmless, it’s sensible. You on the other hand sound like you’re away with the fairies.

There is so much wrong with this work of fiction that it’s difficult to know where to start. First off, why would Dave, the founder and owner of the business, commit to an equity restructuring which gave him only income and no capital? He would not. Even a private equity deal would not involve that

It wasn’t a PE deal . It was a deal within his family to protect him in the divorce.

Secondly, Dave would not get 50/50 of Aqua’s assets because assets are divided according to need (in the absence of a pre-nup) and she would need to house herself in suitable housing for her and the 2 kids

There WAS a pre nup, that’s the point of this thread. The assets WERE divided by need, they both got 50:50, which is the starting point in Uk divorce laws . Aquea was the bigger earner on paper AND she has savings and a pension, unlike poor Dave who had none ( that could be found ). She had enough earnings to buy a flat for her and their children - what’s not suitable about that ? Dave also needs accommodation for himself and his pregnant GF.

Thirdly, it’s unclear on what basis Debbie could receive £250k a year, unless that in fact reflected a combination of (a) her fair market salary and (b) the dividends payable pari passu to all other shareholders of her class of share.

Debbie is the only person who owns that class of shares. It’s 50k salary and 200k dividends .

With profits of £500k a year, it is highly unlikely that a single shareholder could receive half of the company profits, especially given that in the fantasy scenario where Dave has chosen to receive only income and give up his capital in the company he founded, he would be unlikely to be a director any more and would therefore have no role to play in determining what proportion of profits were paid as dividends and what proportion invested back into the company

Of course one shareholder can get half the profits , she owns half the company! This is a small family business , it’s not Listed company with institutional shareholders. There are many small companies where one person take ALL the profits .

Dave is still a director . His shares have full voting rights, just no right to capital.

Even if he were still a director, there would be at least one other director who would be unlikely to vote on a resolution to pay Debbie half the annual profits, since doing so would be in dereliction of his or her fiduciary duties to the company

Yes , there’s two other directors, his parents. They have happy to give Debbie half the profits, that’s the deal they made with their son. Debbie owns half the company. The company is doing fine , they can afford to pay out these dividends.

In addition, it would be unfairly prejudicial to other shareholders and could found a derivative claim by another shareholder or shareholders on behalf of the company

There are no other shareholders, it’s a small family business. There’s just Dave, Debbie and his parents . When his parents die, they will leave their shares to Dave, they can’t be held by anyone outside the family .

Of course it can and does happen. I’ve seen it . You don’t seem to undertand the potential for manipulating income in small family companies. .

Ask the CMS why so many directors of profitable companies suddenly earn £24,000 / year as soon as they are liable for child support. And why so many self employed tradesmen earn £9000/ year.

That there's a contract at all is totally unromantic!

Hmm. Maybe it's marriage that's unromantic! 🤔

I don't think a pre-nup is the language of love but each to their own. Discussions of money in a marriage are not the same thing.

We can be both charming and loving and engage in discussions and agreements about money. Nothing unromantic about a fair contract!

Mr Darcy paid a wodge of cash to the disgusting Mr Wickham, twice, for the sake of his sister and the sister of the woman he loved. Both times with legal type agreements. Then he shared Pemberley.

Cormoran Strike made Robin a partner in the detective agency.

fictional men are often better than real ones, but I did find one of this ilk, and married him! the other day he cheerfully informed me that due to his new job and insurance policy that came with it he was now worth more than before to me and the DC upon his death.

But marriage shouldn't be a leap of faith, OP (and you're in for a world of trouble if you think it should); it's a financial contract. Which you yourself alluded to, when you told your other half you wanted the legal protection of marriage before you'd have children.

Your fiance is being very sensible. Over 40% of UK marriages end in divorce. If you can't honestly discuss finances and your future as adults now, you'll never be able to. If these sorts of conversations make you uncomfortable, you may not be as ready for marriage as you think you are.

And I agree with the above the man sounds weak. This is going to sound a bit crazy, bearing on all my other posts, but seriously, if he's trying to kind of mentally get you into the frame of mind that suggests he wants to be less committed. But you are the one driving it that is a very normal trick that weak-willed men use to abdicate responsibility for their own choices. I just don't trust people like that. Especially not adults, because it's something a child does. I would say to the op on the other side of things.There are bad signs about this.You're not wrong.

You’re forcing this man to marry you after two years. Maybe if you let him realise he loves you enough to propose and plan a proposal and not feel forced or threatened, he would be more romantic about things.

But you’ve made it clear you don’t trust him financially in the event of a break up if you have children and now feel sick because he’s expressed similar concerns about being able to trust you financially in the event of a break up with his business?

Just break up already, clearly neither of you actually want to be in the relationship, you’re there for convenience and transaction only

And finally be confident in yourself to negotiate an excellent prenup.What a lot of women have been trying to tell the original poster is actually a well negotiated.Prenup would leave you in a better position potentially than if you didn't sign one at all.

posts are perfectly coherent? If you are not able to engage with the content, don't try and gaslight.It's unbecoming. Again, public service announcement to young women. Make sure you are financially stable. Don't rely on someone else to provide you with stability when you go into a marriage. As a woman, you will have a period of physical vulnerability. If you decide to have children, it's imperative before you get married. You understand what your finance will look like. When you are in that specific position, you need to make sure your partner knows they will have to make pension contributions for you. They will have to make sure that you have enough money in your account each month. All of these are easy conversations. If the person you want to marry doesn't want to have these conversations, do not marry them. Read flag If you are in a relationship with a wealthy person and they ask for a preanup, and you yourself are not wealthy, that is perfectly reasonable. It doesn't mean anything about you. It doesn't mean anything about their love for you. They're just not stupid. It's a contract.

Speak for yourself!

I am also mid 40I am definitely old now. I am very much old. My body hurts. I get angry for no reason. And I fight on forums, we are old.That's one thing that we can safely be together