Making a prenuptial agreement when you remarry could provide much-needed clarity and security, including for your children
Making a prenuptial agreement when you remarry could provide much-needed clarity and security, including for your children
Going into a second marriage – especially if your first one ended in divorce – can be simultaneously joyful and anxious. Are there lessons to learn from the first marriage? Are your families (including children from previous relationships) supportive of it? Are you happy with the arrangements for your existing assets or debts and future financial plans? And so on.
There’s a lot to think about here, and whilst a prenuptial agreement (or pre-nup) cannot fix the first two questions, it can provide clarity and reassurance on the third one – to family members as well as yourselves.
Pre-nups explained
A prenup is a legally binding arrangement (if drawn up properly) that states what happens to some of your assets if you split up. It’s up to you to decide which assets you include and how you ringfence them, but typical examples could be:
- Money you want to set aside for your children such as a college fund.
- A house owned before marriage.
- A share in a business.
Legally, any assets you acquire before the marriage would not, with few exceptions, form part of the value of the matrimonial pot available to share anyway if you split; however, the territory can be complex if, for example, you use pre-marital assets to fund a home or enterprise. Similarly, gifted and inherited assets generally remain separate property in the event of separation, but if used to purchase new assets during the marriage, again, the new assets are matrimonial. By ringfencing assets with a pre-nup, you obtain certainty as to how some items will be dealt with in a divorce and by having agreement at a stage when you are on good terms.
It’s not too late!
If you’re already on your first, second or subsequent marriage and haven’t done a pre-nup, there’s a solution available to you. It’s called a post-nup and we’d be happy to tell you more.
Also worth thinking about
Other paperwork to review if you’re heading for a second marriage could include:
- Your Will, including your executors.
- Pension and life assurance beneficiaries.
- Any Powers of Attorney.
A lawyer can help with this.
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