Prenups – a Matter of the Head or ‘Hart’?

The number of couples considering a prenuptial agreement is expected to rise after the Court of Appeal dismissed a woman’s request for her and her ex-husband’s assets to be split equally.

In the case of Hart v Hart, His Honour Judge Wildblood QC awarded Karen Hart just £3.5m out of the total assets amounting to just under £9.4m in a financial remedy order made in June 2015. This unusual ruling wasn’t as a result of a ‘short, sharp’ marriage as documented previously, as the couple’s marriage spanned 23 years.

Karen Hart’s solicitor said the settlement ‘should have been based on an equal sharing of the assets they created between them during this time’, and the recent ruling ‘leaves the law in a state of flux. It allows a trial judge to find that even where it is not properly evidenced, the financial contribution of one spouse outweighs the family and domestic contribution of the other. This can lead to a result that is unfair and discriminatory, as it has done in this case. More such results are likely to follow, with the potential to set the law back more than 20 years’.

Regardless of whether this latest ruling will indeed set a precedent for financial remedy cases moving forward, it will no doubt make couples who are looking to wed in the near future think about their financial assets, and how best to allocate them should the worst occur by drafting up a prenuptial agreement.

MORE INFORMATION 

For more information relating to divorce law, prenuptial agreements and how Pinney Talfourd can help, please contact our Family Law department – call on 01708 229444 or email us using the form to the right to arrange a free initial consultation.