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.

If a man doesn't want to share his assets, he shouldn't get married. He certainly shouldn't expect his wife to sacrifice her own career and financial security to birth and bring up his kids when he is intending to keep all his money to himself. He sounds like a neanderthal throw-back to a, luckily, bygone age.

He clearly doesn’t understand the law either. Who would pay the legal costs for the renup is he expecting DD to pay half. Your DD should buy her own property that would save paying joint rent if she wants to continue relationship it would be only on his terms the question is does she want to. I suggest he is acting like this as he is the stronger financial one if your DD asserts her independence I wonder how he would react.

There’s a ton of amber/red flags here. He wants a prenup but also wants her to give work if they have kids and be financially dependent on him?
So she won’t be earning money, won’t be building a career, won’t have her own savings and won’t be paying into a pension. What about HER future if they spilt later? If she’s been a SAHM for years how is she going to live independently from him, pay rent or a mortgage ?
It’s a myth that he’ll have to pay her loads of money etc. doesn’t happen. Courts will expect them to spilt marital assets as equally as possible and for her to support herself.

She needs to be very careful. Other than getting a document saying they’ll ring fence their deposits if they buy a house together she should be very carefully. Personally, I would rather my child didn’t marry someone like this.

What if he realises it’s NOT in his interest to get married at all but still wants to have kids with her. That leaves her in a much more precarious financial position.

I would say that I would say the same thing if it was a man or a woman as the higher earner and I would - sort of- if they had decided they were never having children.
The reality is though it’s the woman who will be giving birth and that changes her finance entirely - at least for a year or so per child birth- and permanently if ‘they’ decide it’s ‘best’ for the family that she does the majority of childcare and it seems that this young man will very much want to keep earning money and working rather than spend his time looking after children

Why shouldn't he try to protect his assets?Your dd earns less but then also contributes proportionately to her wages so she isn't exactly losing out? If he expects everything to be split 50:50despite her earning less then I would be a lot more concerned. What I would advise her to clarify and carefully consider before talks of marriage is if they do go ahead and have children she should not be disadvantaged financially because of this.

My dh paid for the children's nursery because by this point he was out earning me. If I had paid I would have had very little left to the point it wouldn’t have been financially viable to work and we would have lost out finacially long term. This meant I continued to work part time whilst they were little and now as they are school aged benefits our family. It also benefitted me mentally. I also set the expectation that it wouldn't always be me who took time off if the kids were sick, dh was also able to use the flexibility he has in his role to drop down to 4 days so we didn't need childcare for our last child as I was able to work around him. We do have separate accounts etc but money for bills, mortgage kids, holidays comes from one account that we contribute to proportionate to our wages. The biggest indicator of a successful relationship in my view is how you support each other regardless of what you bring in financially. We are and always have been on the same team.

I know a few couple with this kind of arrangement. Not unusual where one partner has a much larger financial input. Not sure what happens once children are involved.

Once children are involved it is almost inevitable that the woman loses out. Though it is likely the lower earner would lose out before then as it is nearly always they who are expected to compromise their career/living arrangements to accommodate the higher earner.

I this this is one of the best ideas I've read yet. It would also be a safety net for OPs DD buying her own property.

If I was protecting my finances (I have put legal provisions in place for my finances and for my DD who is currently aged 4 and I had the mother of the person I'm with trying to 'talk to me' about it id see that as a huge red flag.

this isn't your business to get into.

he's very sensible protecting his money. Once they're married it's one pot of course, but seeing as half of marriages end in divorce, it's absolutely reasonable to protect your assets in case of this.

if it was a woman posting about protecting her assets the answers would be very different

YABVU

She doesn’t contribute proportionally though. She will pay 40% of the costs but he earns x3 more than her.

lets say the outgoings are £3k a month
she earns 2k and pays £1200 and has 800 left
he earns 6k and pays £1800 and has over 4K left

Personally, I think if both partners are contributing equally to the marriage (I don’t just mean financially, through childcare, household chores etc) then they should have equal personal money or the extra should at least go into joint savings.
I couldn’t be married to someone who thought it was ok to pocket 4K a month when we share a life and kids together.

But on marriage he’s not seeing it as 1 pot that’s why he’s expecting her to only have 30% even when married. Whether the prenup would be legal is a bit of a red flag it’s his intention about the future that’s worrying me. What is she gets I’ll can’t work would he still expect her to pay 30% of the mortgage etc.

When I lived with my boyfriend I had a flat which I sold and we bought a house together. Because he contributed nothing to the deposit we had a tenants in common arrangement which was 60/40 in my favour. After a couple of years we got married and then moved house a year or so later at which point I changed that arrangement to joint tenants so that we had an equal share in the house.

I firmly believe that once you are married you are making a union - one where often women make a lot of family sacrifices which directly affect their earning capabilities - and as such your finances are part of that. If he is so worried about his money then he shouldn't get married and shouldn't expect a woman to have children with him.

None of this proportionality will matter 10 plus years down the line with 2 dc! It will start at 50:50! A pre nup won’t override the needs of dc to be housed. So it’s a very short term agreement and won’t mean anything after a longer marriage and dc arrive.

DD should keep working. Latest case law means wealth accrued before marriage can be omitted from the marriage pot on divorce. Marriage assets will be those acquired during marriage. So whatever he does, marriage won’t protect his assets acquired during the marriage.

Loads of women earn less than men. My ratio was 10:1. However I’d still have got circa 50:50. The issue is marriage and dc change everything and neither me or dh had wealth we brought into the marriage. Neither does this man really. It’s just the house deposit. Luckily my house isn’t 10 shares to dh and 1 to me. It evens up with childcare etc. No pre nup will also that on divorce if there’s no wealth prior to marriage.

None of this proportionality will matter 10 plus years down the line with 2 dc! It will start at 50:50! A pre nup won’t override the needs of dc to be housed. So it’s a very short term agreement and won’t mean anything after a longer marriage and dc arrive.

Unfortunately there are couples where the woman is expected to use her savings to cover her share during mat leave. Or expected to ask her husband for money. The financial planning threads are full of threads asking how to split finances when on parental leave or being home with the kids.

The ”Once they're married it's one pot of course” is the crux of it. The OP is suggesting that the property won’t be in one pot - it will be in 2 pots - a big pot which owns 70% of the equity (for the provider), and a little pot which owns 30% (for the sahm).
”when I said to dd and him - dd that means if you split and sold up , your share of the equity would be much less and both agreed.”

It’s fair enough really if it’s a short marriage with no dc and he contributes 70% of deposit, mortgage and maintenance and she 30% and they walk away with what they put in. It’s not fair enough after a 10 year marriage when the OPs dd has had 2 maternity leaves, 5 years of part time working (because it just makes so much sense for the lower earner to pick up the slack at home so the provider doesn’t have to miss a beat), missed career advancement and no savings and she’s stuck in the SE (because of his job) trying to house two primary age kids on only 30% of the equity while juggling full time work and 80% of the childcare. The point of the pre-nup is to cement the scenario of long marriage with dc.

It’s the OPs business to a certain extent as adult dc do ask their wiser and more experienced parents for advice occasionally, and it’s the OPs cash facilitating the dds deposit.

@ravenpie exactly. It's argument where you can see both sides. Whilst I wouldn't want my son at risk if I was leaving him money. I also wouldn't want my daughter at risk like you've pointed out. There has to be middle ground here. OP isn't wrong for highlighting this to her DD and her partner any mother would speak up and say the same.

@RavenPie Just because a house is 70:30 doesn’t mean the marital assets are divided this way on divorce! All assets go into the lot! Including his pension. It’s not going to be this split some way into a marriage with dc. All assets of both parties are divided. Possibly equally because the courts know women haven’t had the same opportunities if providing child care.

I've seen threads on here about women excited to take half the guys pension and stuff and "clear him out".

Nothing wrong with that if they have kids together and she's forfeited a private pension by being a SAHM or part time (which is career suicide in many professions). Obviously the pension accrued before the marriage needs to be considered, not so does the period after when her earnings are going to be impacted long-term by the parenting decisions they made together as a couple.

Isn’t that literally what the point of the prenup is - to ensure that asserts aren’t split equally? The OP is saying he will own 70% of the equity forever - not 70% of the deposit or 70% of the equity at the point that they have children. The house is a HUGE asset - the person walking away with 70% of it will definitely get significantly more than the person walking away with 30% of it even if they get an even split on everything else (personally I’d rather have my own pension than a messy portion of my ex husbands).

It's probably tongue in cheek. I've made that same joke to my DH (though I have almost as much as him in private pension as he pays into mine).

In my marriage, what's his is mine and what's mine is his. We're a partnership and team and have none of this separate finance thing going on. I can understand for a second marriage, especially where children are involved, or some other circumstance. For us, we married with nothing and built everything together, so it works well to just be a unit.

if they decided he earns and she stays home without an income and pension of her own, she's not taking half his pension, she's taking her share of their joint assets.

Imagine being a man, working hard providing for a family and then the woman decides to up and leave with 50% of your stuff. As far as my understanding of English law goes adultery has no effect at all?

A prenup should be one that does protect the man's assets and in the event of kids sets out a sensible co-parenting arrangement and provides the woman with rehabilitative alimony needed to support herself until she becomes financially independent again.

I guess that depends how you see things. Anything we have together or bought into the marriage is 'our stuff'. 50/50 would be reasonable.

Imagine being a man, working hard providing for a family and then the woman decides to up and leave with 50% of your stuff

it is not his stuff. It's their stuff.