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.

I agree with those that say that she just needs her own good legal advice, and the prenup needs to take into account the future and any children etc.

If my daughter earned what the bf earns and was putting that amount of money in, I’d tell her to get a prenup too.

It’s savvy to hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

I’d have your daughter seek legal advice though to make sure the prenup protects her should she have children and take time off work.

You are completely wrong. Prenups are valid if certain conditions are met. I think it's sensible. DD's boyfriend should get a good solicitor to write a sensible prenup and follow all the requirements to make the prenup legally enforceable.

I think it's reasonable for him to protect his pre martial assets.
But from the point of marriage onwards their time and effort needs to be considered equal going forwards and what he earns and what she earns becomes marital funds, towards living expenses, luxury's, pensions and savings.
If he considers his time more valuable because he is in a profession that pays more, or he considers that he had more authority and control of spending decisions because he earns more, then your DD needs to seriously reconsider her future with him.

We have a pre-nup.

DH came into the marriage with much more than me, and with a career plan that involved working really hard in a miserable job for a while in order to get to the very well paid jobs (whereas my plan was always to coast along enjoying my free time).

It always made sense to me that he would want to protect those assets - half of all marriages end in divorce, it’s just sensible to think in advance about that possibility.

Also his parents had an extremely acrimonious divorce - entirely about financial issues not custody - and he wanted to make sure that if we ever did divorce we would be able to do it reasonably amicably because we would have already made the hard financial decisions at a time when we were in love and feeling kind to one another rather than leaving it to resolve at a horrible time.

Pre-nups are persuasive in English law, so a judge can choose to ignore it completely if they think it’s unfair, but will usually pay attention to what the parties agreed at the beginning. But if - for example- they marry and she then spends 20 years as a SAHM to their kids then the judge is likely to ignore the pre-nup entirely, it’s more about how you fairly divide assets after relatively short and child free marriages where nobody has made career sacrifices.

Witsend101 ·
I have no idea about the assets
Think that

1. his aim is to protect his wealth if things go wrong as he does not want to be made to leave his home ( he seems to give examples of people it has happened to )
2. I would guess 70%f the house value because 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.
3. he has a massive amount of investment made by risk taking when younger and going without .
4. he seems generous with her - he also supports his parents who remain on benefits, and sometimes run out of food or cant pay their rent ( on benefits)

His money is his top priority.
Have they talked about what would happen if either of them lost their job or couldn't work? Would he be happy to support her and would he expect her to support him?

……And her husband was going to get pregnant, possibly several times, have time of work and get interrupted from his career?

Thank you so much for your advice and perspectives - I come from a very traditional background and this was a massive challenge to get my head around .

As always with these threads, if it was a woman, everybody would be applauding her for protecting her assets.

I think he's being very sensible.

You'd want it to be the other way round if your daughter was the loaded one ?

TBH I think that if this is the way he feels probably getting married isn't the best thing to do in the first place. He would be better off not getting married and keeping everything separate, which is a much better solution than a pre-nup.

I'd have no problem with it except that she absolutely must protect her full contribution eg maternity leave, possible impact on career prospects and pension. Who is paying what percentage of the bills? Funding holidays? Will there be a 'fun money' account where they both pay proportionately but each can access equally? And after all of this, will she be left with very little personal money each month?

IANAL.
I think it isn't unreasonable but it it should have some time out clauses for duration of marriage and children.

There is nothing wrong with what he wants; in essence, he's protecting himself. I'd say the same for a woman, fyi.

Any agreement she enters into needs to be a declining or sunset agreement, either a conditional or a fixed-date agreement, e.g., after 10 years or if they have children. The agreement is null and void.

She needs to go and see a family law specialist.

For people saying they are not upheld in the UK is just wrong; they are and have been upheld in the past, yes, on high-profile cases, but the principle in UK law has been set.

I wouldn’t particularly want to marry somebody who was already planning our divorce in detail, in honesty.
I agree but im 60, I have heard way too many people in their 29s and early 30s say, well if it doesn't work out we can always get divorced.
First time I heard it was with my friends dd several years ago.
Marriage, for quite a few, seens to be a temporary relationship status!

Op, if it was the other way around and your dd was much better if financially, wouldn't you want her assets protected?

I also dislike the idea of him 'being generous with her'. It's such an imbalance. It sounds like a horrible dynamic tbh.

Why the fuck are you talking to him about it?!

I think the two of them need to have a broader discussion about how a life together would work.

Everything can’t be about protecting your own position. What happens if someone gets a great job opportunity that requires the other to move? What if they have a disabled child? What if one of them loses their job? How will they handle finances generally?

I wonder if you have a problem with this because of how they are currently splitting finances? A 60-40 split when he already earns close to triple her wage plus bonuses is really not fair. No wonder he has more to put into their house. He’s got that from using her to pay more than her fair share of bills.

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

Red flag central here. You're right to be worried.

I understand his worries but a marriage needs to be equal and a partnership, I fear this one will end up the way so many I read of here.

She needs independent financial & legal advice - any pre nup must protect her & reflect her contributions to married life (which won't always be investments & earnings). A pre nup shouldn't be one sided.

Not much else you can do. Keep schtum and be there for her if it goes pear shaped

Maybe suggest the buy a cheaper house and contribute 50-50?

This.
Feels like it could end up with him spending his money on whatever he wants while she's saving up to buy clothes she needs, and sitting in economy on a plane while he travels first class because he's treating her for the hotel and it's his money.

I think posters are confusing two things. The ownership of the house is DIFFERENT to a pre-nup. They’re not one and the same.

Owning a house as tenants in common, with unequal shares, is a normal thing to do when one partner has provided a much larger deposit and / or is paying a higher share of the mortgage. That’s understandable and reasonable here.

A pre-nup encompasses the entire assets of the marriage and may not be reasonable - as others have said it doesn’t take into consideration any changes to their circumstances - children, her suddenly becoming the higher payer etc.

I have to admit to slightly widened eyes when he said his reason was that many men end up in rented if they divorce. He’s obviously happy for her to go back into rented though!

I would be less worried about the prenup than his attitudes towards women and the ‘poor’ men who have ‘lost their home’. In the cases where a woman has taken more than half it’s usually because her earnings have suffered as a result of being the main child rearer. Or they have a large mortgage and can’t afford to keep the marital home so they both ‘lose’ their home. I wonder if he’s also keen to enter into an agreement whereby he is able to do 50% of the childcare and housework so
that she can work on her career. I bet he wouldn’t consider the negative impact that might have on his career.

I had a pre-nup drawn up by a good firm of solicitors when I married. I was into 7-figures of assets at that time, plus income and savings. He brought nothing, and left with nothing from my assets. When we divorced, his solicitor told him it would take a lot of money to challenge the prenup. It is important that both parties receive independent legal advice prior to signing. They are not enforceable automatically in court, but they do give some protection (especially in the early years of marriage). Their biggest function is deterrent, as legal challenges are expensive. Some people are very much against them as they believe they go against the principle of marriage. However, they can be useful where there is a huge disparity in what people are bringing to the marriage. It is really important that she gets legal advice and plans for what will happen if she stops working to raise a family, or through sickness/ unemployment later on. In my present financial situation, I would never ever consider marrying again, or living with a partner. I have seen others being fleeced when things turn bad, and it puts me off for life. But not everyone who is wealthy feels the same way. I do understand your future son in law's position, but you are right to feel like protecting your daughter as well.

She should seek legal advice to ensure she is protected. A prenup in itself is not a bad thing, the problem is when one or both parties are not thinking about the entire lifetime of a marriage and how things can change.

The main questions to ask would be:
What happens to assets accumulated pre marriage
What happens to assets acculumated after marriage pre children
What happens to assets accumulated after marriage and after children.

Because based on the current set up, it seems likely that she wil become the primary carer to any children, as well as taking on the bulk of other domestic chores, so if they were to split after that, the key considerations would be 1. ensuring the children are looked after and 2. reflecting her contribution overall to the marriage by caring for children while he worked etc.