Dd s boyfriend wants a pre nup .

[Velveteenrabbitt]

dd had been with her bf since uni - he has several investments and earns 85 k plus massive bonuses and his earnings will increase. She earns 32k

They are buying a house together and she is investing 30% of deposit , he 70% . Has he has more money.
They told me y day that he wants a pre nup when they get married.
I must admit I was very shocked as I assumed marriage to be a ‘ we situation’ and everything is shared as in the good and the bad - and why would money be the only thing not shared ?

I spoke to him about it as he told me that his mates just dont get it . He says that its because he has seen some married men lose their home And end up in rented if the couple split up and the man ends up worse off mostly, he wants to make sure that If anything happened its not like that .
The mortgage but also it will be not what i assumed in that it will be - joint ownership - but that he gives 70% contributions to deposit and mortgage payments, and she gives 30 % and that will be reflected too .

We are giving dd part of her deposit. The solicitor says that this is classed as a gift and is paid when the mortgage commences.

dd says that initially she was upset and insulted , but now she understands what he means she is ok with it .

I understand that she will need a solicitor for her part of the pre nup.?
I remain anxious about this - it does not feel normal ?

How can i address this with sensitivity with dd without isolating her from us ?

Ive said to him it needs to be fair and in the marriage would be uneasy if dd had to buy cheap clothes for eg and him with more income had much more spending money.. he said that - what people don't see is he does treat her - and he is generous- but again thats in his control .

He comes from quite a deprived background and I think part of this may be anxiety as he has worked very very hard .

I don't want to interfere , dd adult, but also our dd.I am aware we may need to tread carefully here am looking for balanced support and i want to stay measured about this and calm etc.

Prenups are an increasingly normal way to protect pre-marital assets, and very sensible. They are generally adhered to in the UK, and very much worth the paper they’re written on. Radmacher v Granatino in 2010 is the case that established prenups as having decisive weight. The notion that they’re worthless is very much incorrect.

Marriage is ultimately a legal contract, and as such it’s foolish for anyone to allow romantic notions of love to put them at a disadvantage. That doesn’t mean he, or anyone utilizing a prenup, goes into a marriage expecting it to fail, any more than putting a seat belt on when traveling in a car means you expect it to crash.

It’s important that your daughter employs her own legal representation in negotiating it.

I think he’s being very sensible given the high failure rate of marriages. I would like to see a change in the law so that all pre marriage assets are not included in marital assets.

I agree, there would need to be some stipulation in there if for example she was a sahm parent or on a pt wage looking after children, he couldn’t just take off with everything.
I think it’s sad that couples have to make these sort of plans but I guess that’s the world we’re living in now.

I'm in two minds about this one. On the one hand I can see how hard he's worked and I think he should feel really proud of himself to get where he's got to - that takes an awful lot of work and determination.

However, I think his background has affected his character in a bad way, too. I think anyone who uses the term "pussywhipped" is on the road to Andrew Tate thinking, and I'd avoid anyone like that like the plague. I certainly think someone like that would get very angry if crossed and I would be scared for my daughter - not necessary physically but in terms of what he'd do in revenge.

He has these plans that don't include him. They do include his frankly feckless family, though - those are the people he aligns himself with.

I think she'll have so many problems with him in the future. Decisions about where to go on holiday - he's paying more, so his decision would hold more weight. Decisions about who to spend Christmas with - he feels at home with his family, so good luck to you seeing her and any children then. Decisions about where to buy a house - it's his money, so he'll decide.

He's a control freak. He's had to be one, so I'm not blaming him for that, but I wouldn't want a relationship with him.

I'd suggest to your daughter that she waits before making a decision. Imagine if they had kids and split up? Good luck to her in having a civil relationship with him. Honestly, I think men like this try to destroy anyone who gets in their way.

I really could not marry a man like this. I could not marry a man who views the home as “the man’s home” solely because he earns more.

I could not marry a man who would rather see his kids homeless to ensure he gets the home (because let’s face it - he won’t be the primary carer.)

Also pre-nups are not legally binding in the UK.

Now if this was a much older couple, with first marriages / kids behind them and this was their second chance - I would agree with him. But marriage turns most young couples into one unit.

I mean each to their own but this would not work for me.

At the very least if she is signing a prenup she needs legal representation and to ensure that should they split 35 years later she is not penalised for years spent supporting the family with her unpaid labour.

Once he’s put that cash into a jointly owned property, the money stops being his individual asset, it becomes equity in a shared asset.

He can’t both spend it on a house and still count it as personal wealth that must be “protected.”

That’s why his logic doesn’t quite hold up, he wants the benefits of shared ownership and the protections of individual ownership, which isn’t how property law works.

He can’t treat the same money both as “spent” (once it’s turned into house equity) and as a “personal asset” to be ringfenced in a prenup later.

So a Declaration of Trust is the right legal tool for protecting unequal ownership of the house, but it’s separate from and serves a different purpose than a prenup.

Not that the TikTok incel accountants he has clearly been listening to would make this distinction...

A prenup only protects what he has on the day they married—she cannot have any of that in the event of a divorce. Everything that is earned DURING the marriage is a marital asset, and is split 50/50–this includes money, property, and pensions earned over the duration of the marriage.

Really? You think it would be fine for him to be walking round in designer labels while his partner is in Primark because it's his money. What a dreadful approach to have to the supposed love of your life.

What's even weirder is someone wanting to enter into a legal arrangement with someone to pool all their resources, while simultaneously wanting not to pool all their resources.

At the end of the day if you don't want to share stuff with your partner just don't marry them and avoid the hassle and potential issues if it goes wrong in the first place.

I am not against pre-nups (not that they matter much in uk) to protect assets, company, inheritance, pension or even pre-marital investments or ring fencing a deposit or even different ownerships of a house.

All of this is fine as long as marriage is still equal. If his plan is to protect his marital salary, then he shouldn't get married.

He sounds tight to me if they are splitting the bills 60/40 but he earns way more than 3 times her salary. He’s already having her over. It’s all very well him obsessing that he put more into the deposit, but what’s it going to be like when your daughter is on Mat leave? Is he going to be the type to give her a minimal housekeeping allowance each week while he’s swanning around in designer gear and going off on his golf days?

Why are we all assuming he'll be a controlling abusive jerk?

Yep

Because that is the basis on which safeguarding works.

Because he’s already taking the piss with splitting the bills 60/40. Given his salary and he apparently wants everything to be proportionate, it should be more like 75/25

Because of his attitude so far? He sounds tight, greedy and selfish to me.

With all due respect, the City is not real life for most people.

Because as soon as something is left up to someone else's good will, no matter how nice or benign the person, you are potentially in deep shit.

im going to assume abusive /controlling because he’s not just wanting to buy a house now protecting who gets what (kind of sensible at the still “dating” stage), but wants a prenup to protect “his” money after building a family with the OP’s dd. That’s a red flag.

He might not have thought about adding issues of children, if his career is going to be full on, can he do half of all childcare or will he be expecting his wife to go part time give up work, or at least to take on the bulk so as a couple his career is prioritised?

OP do make sure your dd has thought about these things for the future. Is this the sort of man she wants to have children with?

They live in London and he is earning £85k plus bonuses a couple of years out of uni. It seems likely he is on a City track, not that of most people.

If the DD isn't happy with the plan. She can not get married. She needs to think it through. I've seen posts here r.e. divorces where women are gleeful to be able to take 50% of their DP's stuff.

How old are they? For me I don't know how to feel about a prenup. Do they want children? Will your DDs partner be the one willing to go on mat leave?

Women tend to draw the short end once they have kids.

He may not be. Once I had my baby though DS dad was terrible! Lucky for me I never married him or gave up my job.

Yep. The OPs daughter will no doubt be posting on the relationships board in a few years when she can’t afford a coffee at soft play whilst she’s on maternity leave because her high earning DH is insisting she pays her share of the bills and won’t commit to joint finances. Then there will be a big pile on from people saying she was stupid to get in that situation etc.