Court upholds revocation of pre-nuptial agreement

As is well known, the courts of England and Wales will give effect to a pre-nuptial agreement that is freely entered into by each party with a full appreciation of its implications, unless in the circumstances it would not be fair to hold the parties to the agreement.

The rationale behind this is to give married couples the freedom to make their own choices, in particular regarding the division of assets on divorce, rather than have the court impose its decision upon them. Provided the agreement is freely entered into, the parties understand its implications, and its terms are not unfair (as at the time of the divorce), then the court will uphold it.

And logically one would assume that if the parties subsequently agreed to revoke the pre-nuptial agreement, then the court would also respect their freedom to do so, subject to similar provisos.

But in a recent case in the Central Family Court in London a husband sought to argue that the court should disregard a deed that the couple signed revoking an earlier pre-nuptial agreement. And the argument was not without consequences, as we will see in a moment.

Briefly, the relevant background to the case was as follow. The couple were married in June 2012. Prior to the marriage they signed a pre-nuptial agreement, which provided for the husband to receive a greater share of the assets on divorce, reflecting the fact that he had contributed more of the assets.

In April 2022, however, the couple signed a deed revoking the pre-nuptial agreement, and providing for the assets to be divided equally on divorce. The circumstances surrounding this were that the marriage had at that time been in some difficulties, but both parties were making efforts to save it.

A few months later, however, the marriage broke down completely, and divorce proceedings followed.

As indicated, the husband sought to argue that the court should disregard the deed, and uphold the pre-nuptial agreement. This would have left the wife with some £6.4 million, as against the sum of about £9.9 million if the assets were divided equally.

The husband argued that the wife had manipulated him into revoking the pre-nuptial agreement, with the full intention of then seeking a divorce.

The judge did not accept this argument. He found that the wife had genuinely still hoped to save the marriage when the deed was signed. Further, the wife had not subjected the husband to undue pressure. The husband knew what he was doing and made his own choice to sign the deed, after taking expert legal advice.

In the circumstances the judge found that the deed was a ‘magnetic factor’ in relation to the division of capital. He therefore awarded the wife half of the assets.

You can read the full report of the case here.

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