How can parents help protect gifts or inheritance if children divorce?

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We have quite a few friends getting divorced / separating. Must be the age we are at. But some of these people have been married over 10 years so by UK law most things are being split 50/50.

Even if someone had inherited 150k and brought a house outright the partner has a claim of upto 50% of it. If parents have gifted them 100k for a house, again it can forced to spilt 50/50.

It’s made me think how can I better protect my children in the future. I’ve heard prenups don’t always stand up in the UK. If I gifted my children money how do I protect that so it stays with them? I’m hoping they never get divorced but there seems to be a high rate within our friendship groups at the moment.

I have heard that it needs ring fencing and never being used as “family money”. So if you use it to pay off the family mortgage it’s marital asset. I would always recommend legal advice where large sums of money is at stake, but just lay person advice online.

This is apparently a really serious issue. My DH works at a large company and one of the really big bigwigs gave his daughter something like £800k for a house purchase outright. The man his daughter married managed to walk away with half of it when they got divorced. So literally hundreds of thousands of pounds. Like a new kind of gold digging!

I have heard that some very rich families buy a house as part of a trust so that if their child divorces the husband/wife has no claim on the house as it isn't theirs. I think this is something to get legal advice on.

I know that when my friend married it was her husband's second marriage and they have some kind of legal document stipulating that if they divorce then he gets what he put in, she gets what she put in and the rest is split. I think they own as tenants in common to do this.

I was really shocked to find my friend brought the house out right before marriage. Then got married, partner lived there rent free (so already a bonus) but now the partner could ask for 50% of the house.

The simple answer is if she owned a house outright beforehand, then she was foolish to marry someone with fewer assets than herself.

You can ringfence some things but generally marriage means sharing & splitting assets.

In trust for their children and grandchildren would be one way, but I don’t think foolproof. Plus trusts can have their own quirks so not always straightforward.

If you want to gift money or property to your children, speak to a specialist wills/trust solicitor first. I imagine a Trust would be the best way to ensure the money only ever goes to your child and not their husband or ex husband.

We have a trust.

A trust. There’s no guaranteed safeguard, but if planned and executed correctly then a trust significantly reduces the chances of this happening.

https://mpestateplanning.uk/divorce-proof-your-assets-with-an-asset-protection-trust-2/#:~:text=How%20They%20Work,the%20eve%20of%20divorce%20proceedings.

Did that make you feel better?

The law is different in different jurisdictions so England is different from Scotland etc.

pre nups can be taken into account by the court but do not override the courts decision and if there are children they are more likely to be ignored.

I mean that's what marriage is. It means sharing all your assets with someone else. That's the whole deal, both legally and in the spirit of the thing. That's one of the primary reasons why we have marriage, to protect the poorer party.

I'd also say if someone has spent a decade of their life married to someone and has built a life and family with them, it's right that they have a claim to shared assets. Of course there are scenarios where it's not fair, such as when a gift or inheritance was recent, but broadly speaking.

If you have assets or are likely to have assets in future that you don't want to share, then the answer is you shouldn't get married. But many people would argue that money isn't everything and they are willing to take that gamble because traditional marriage is something they want in life outside of financial concerns.

In your situation you have to accept your child got married and chose to share their life and assets with someone, whether you like the look of that risk or not. You could consider gifting to grandchildren if you really don't want to take that risk but that's not bullet proof protection either.

I was literally going to say everything @LayaM just said.

But I could be a bit biased as I have boys, so everything I give towards them and their future wives, I'd be happy for the wife to have 50% as chances are they'd be the mothers of my grandchildren (just going on averages and speculation, they're still teenagers!)

Did that make you feel big and clever.

The whole point of marriage is that it's a legal way of uniting people financially. Why not accept that it is part of the risk you take and divorce is a part of life. If a large sum is gifted then split in half following a divorce, the blood relative is still in a better position than if they didn't have the money at all. Obviously with a crystal ball you would know when a divorce was going to take place in the future and gift the money just afterwards but life isn't like that.

Also, it depends whether children are involved. If they are, surely it's better for everyone if both parties are as financially secure as possible following a divorce. Speaking of children, I know a lot of people skip a generation and leave money to grandchildren instead of children to avoid the divorce issue but what if the grandchildren get divorced? Or piss the money away in some other way? What if no one gets divorced but the marriage partner is a more forceful person and has huge sway over how the money is spent? You can't control everything.

I do have personal experience of this. Ex-mil gave ex £80k as a deposit when we bought our first house. He was a free-lancer with a terrible credit score so (small at the time) mortgage we also needed was only in my name. We were together for 8 years, added considerably to the mortgage and had two children in that time. I was the breadwinner and ex did childcare when the dc were babies but they were both at school when we split. We had £30k equity at the time and I was able to buy ex out - 12k given at the time and added to the mortgage and £10k to come when youngest is 21. He would never be able to get a mortgage so him staying in the house was never an option.

He was pissed off about his £80k but it didn't exist anymore so what could I do? If mil is pissed off she has never said anything and is always very friendly when we see each other.

Are you saying that you have never made a typo in your whole adult life?

What @LayaM said.

My mother left my ds some money. He is looking at present as if he might marry quite a bit younger than I think could be ideal - but he will be a grown man, and his girlfriend is fabulous. I want him to build a life with her without holding back. I also want the wife he chooses and any children they have not to be damaged in any way and to be able to make a new life if the marriage does turn out not to last forever. I might not be quite so sanguine though if he marries again and has further children and then divorces again…

And? What value do your comment add to the thread? Why not give advice rather than attempting to make another poster feel small?

I agree with all the people saying that this is the whole point of marriage. One of my vows was ‘All that I have, I share with you’.

This is why I never said yes the many times DP asked me to marry him 😬

I completely agree. Also the mother of boys and if they married, had children and divorced, I would not want them to have it all back and leave their children and mother of said children without.

I think it’s a real pity that the church vows do not carry over to secular weddings. Everything I have I share is the legal position and in sickness and in health plus fidelity are widely assumed but those promises are not explicit. There is something quite powerful about making vows out loud in front of everyone and maybe if you don’t want that have a civil partnership instead