‘Earn more’, judge tells lawyer who tried to fight her own prenup

A lawyer has failed in her bid to overturn the prenuptial agreement that she drafted herself. A judge has ruled that the prenup, which was signed just a day before the wedding, is legally binding.
The woman, 58, who is the head of the family team at a legal chambers in London, drew up the prenuptial arrangement in June 2010, stipulating that in the event of a divorce a 50-50 split in assets would not apply to those assets owned solely by the other party.
Her 69-year-old ex-husband, who is a solicitor-advocate in criminal law, owns three properties in the home counties which, along with his savings and other assets, are worth £1.7 million. The woman owns a property in London and has total assets worth about £824,500.
The woman argued that one of the man’s properties, which he had bought in his own name in 2013, should be considered as a “second matrimonial home” as they spent holidays and weekends there. She said that it should not be ring-fenced under the prenuptial agreement.
The case, heard in the family courts in July, hinged on whether the property could be classed as “matrimonial” or “non-matrimonial” in the light of the prenuptial agreement. If couples do not have a prenuptial agreement, assets are normally split 50-50.
The judge, Joseph Nahal-Macdonald, disagreed with the woman’s argument and said that her position was “misconceived”.
He said that if he followed her logic, the ex-husband would be able to claim a share of her London flat, which the parties had treated as their main family home.
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The judge also dismissed the woman’s claim that the property should be shared on a “needs basis”. He suggested that she had sufficient means to fund her lifestyle and that she could do more to maximise her income.
He said: “She asserts that she is ‘coming to the end of her career’, which I found puzzling bearing in mind her age relative to [the man] and the nature of this profession, where it is not uncommon for lawyers to continue working, albeit on a reduced basis, for a decade or more beyond her age.”
The judge also criticised the woman for failing to build up her pension “in 40 years of adulthood” which he said “perhaps belies a reliance on the beneficence of her parents”.
He said the woman was “not taking steps to maximise her income and ought to do so.”
The woman claimed that she had not taken “the lead” in drafting the prenuptial agreement and did not want to be bound by it, but the judge disagreed, saying that she was in fact likely to be “the driving force” behind the contract.
A prenuptial or premarital agreement is made before a marriage or civil partnership and sets out how the couple wish to divide their assets if they split. They are not automatically enforceable in England and Wales, but after a landmark ruling by the Supreme Court in 2010 courts take them into account as long as they have been made in good faith.
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About 22 per cent of marriages are subject to a prenuptial agreement, up from 8 per cent in the 1990s, according to the Marriage Foundation, a charity that promotes marriage.
Co-op Legal Services said that prenup sales in 2023 were up 60 per cent on 2022.
Kaja Viknes from the law firm Nockolds, which represented the ex-husband, said: “The case underlines the care that needs to be taken when entering into a prenuptial agreement. They can be upheld as fair provided that the parties understand the implications and are entered into the agreement freely without duress or pressure.
“The courts may take the view that as long as a prenup is fair to both parties and entered into freely following financial disclosure to each other, it should be upheld regardless of whether legal advice was sought.”