Furthermore, if international divorce is a possibility in a foreign jurisdiction where the family courts are known to be harsher, a pre-nuptial agreement can be used to specify that any future divorce proceedings should happen in the UK, which is widely recognised as being more favourable to the financially weaker party.
Where there are other relevant jurisdictions, it is also vital for parties to have 'mirror agreements' in the relevant country/jurisdiction.
Long-term protection
Sensible family lawyers will always recommend that, once an overall financial agreement has been reached between the parties, that their clients incorporate the terms of that agreement detailing the division of assets into a consent order or financial remedy order.
The expectation is that, once approved and sealed by the court, this will be a legally binding, watertight agreement that, if necessary, could be enforced should a former spouse or civil partner breach its terms by trying to lay claim to a share of the client’s future wealth.
This could be particularly pertinent if a collection or collectors’ items significantly appreciate in value following a divorce and the other party then decides they should benefit from it too.
The no-fault divorce law that came into effect in 2022 allows couples in marriages and civil partnerships to separate without one person needing to blame the other for the breakdown of the relationship.
While reducing acrimony, an unintended consequence of this is that fewer couples are now seeking a formal financial agreement, believing a verbal agreement to be sufficient when they have parted on amicable terms.
This is a decision that could come back to bite them, and we regularly receive enquiries from people who have divorced but want to retrospectively put such an order in place.
These orders are sometimes referred to as ‘clean break orders’ as their purpose is to permanently sever financial ties and afford certainty that the decisions made to divide assets between a divorcing couple cannot be challenged at a later date.
Yael Selig is a partner at Osbornes Law
