Prenuptial Agreement UK | Radmacher Standard

A prenuptial agreement, often shortened to prenup and known formally as an ante-nuptial agreement, is a contract made between two people in contemplation of marriage or civil partnership. It sets out what each party owns going in, how non-matrimonial assets such as inheritances and pre-owned property should be treated, and what financial provision each spouse expects on divorce. The equivalent document signed after the wedding is a post-nuptial agreement, and English courts now apply the same principles to both.

The distinction that trips people up is between a prenup and a consent order. A prenup is a forward-looking agreement signed before any breakdown, and it is not by itself a court order. A consent order is what a divorcing couple asks the court to approve at the end, and only that order is directly enforceable against pensions, property and lump sums. A prenup does not oust the jurisdiction of the family court. No agreement signed before marriage can remove the court's power under statute to make financial orders. What a well-drafted prenup does is tell the court, in advance and in the parties' own words, what they considered fair when they were on good terms. Since the Radmacher v Granatino decision, that starting position carries significant weight, and the spouse who wants to escape the agreement bears the burden of showing why it would be unfair to be held to it. That shift in who has to persuade the judge is the whole reason a properly made prenup is worth having. If you are also thinking about wider estate planning, many couples pair a prenup with a UK will template drafted to the Wills Act 1837 so that inherited wealth is protected both during the marriage and after death.

Prenuptial agreements in England and Wales sit on a foundation of case law rather than a single statute, and understanding that foundation is what separates a robust agreement from a worthless one. The governing statute is the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, whose section 25 obliges the court to have regard to all the circumstances of the case, with first consideration given to the welfare of any child under eighteen, when deciding financial provision on divorce. The eight factors listed there, from each party's income and earning capacity to the standard of living enjoyed during the marriage, remain the lens through which any agreement is judged. You can read the statutory factors in the official text of section 25 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 on legislation.gov.uk.

The turning point came with Radmacher (formerly Granatino) v Granatino [2010] UKSC 42, where the Supreme Court held by a majority of eight to one that a court should give effect to a nuptial agreement freely entered into by each party with a full appreciation of its implications, unless in the prevailing circumstances it would not be fair to hold them to it. That single sentence now drives how every prenup is assessed. The court read the agreement together with the section 25 discretion, drawing on the fairness strands of needs, compensation and sharing identified in White v White and Miller v Miller; McFarlane v McFarlane. The practical consequence is that a prenup which leaves one spouse unable to meet basic housing and living costs, while the other keeps substantial wealth, is unlikely to survive, and no agreement can bind the court on child maintenance.

Reform has been discussed for years without arriving. The Law Commission proposed statutory qualifying nuptial agreements in 2014, and its December 2024 scoping report on financial remedies revisited the question, but as of early 2026 no binding regime has been enacted and Radmacher remains the law. Until Parliament legislates, execution as a deed, honest disclosure and independent advice are what give a prenup its weight. A property and financial affairs LPA drafted to the Mental Capacity Act 2005 is a useful companion document for couples who want their financial wishes respected across every scenario, not only divorce.

The clearest case is protecting pre-marital wealth or an expected inheritance. Someone marrying with a mortgage-free flat, a share portfolio or a family trust interest wants that treated as non-matrimonial property rather than absorbed into the pot, and a prenup that ring-fences it, backed by disclosure, gives the court a reason to respect that intention. Family money passing down the generations is the textbook trigger, and it is why parents so often raise the subject before a wedding.

Business owners form the next large group. A founder whose company has other shareholders, or whose investors have insisted on it, uses a prenup to keep control of the shares out of any future financial remedy fight. Second and later marriages come with their own logic: a spouse with children from a previous relationship frequently wants to preserve capital for those children rather than see it redirected, and a prenup records that plainly. Couples with sharply unequal wealth also use one simply to start married life with a shared understanding rather than an unspoken worry.

Two edge cases are worth flagging. The first is the couple who leave it too late. If there is not enough time to negotiate, disclose and take advice before the wedding, the sensible move is often a post-nuptial agreement signed after marriage, which sidesteps arguments about last-minute pressure. The second is the international couple. Where one party has assets abroad or a prenup already signed in another country, the interaction with English law needs care, because a foreign agreement valid at home is a factor the English court weighs but does not automatically follow. A loan agreement between individuals is sometimes used alongside a prenup where one partner has lent money to the other before marriage and both want that debt documented separately from the marital finances.

• The recitals and intentions open the agreement by naming the parties, the planned wedding date and the reason they are entering into it. This section states that both sign freely, that they intend the court to give the agreement decisive weight, and that they understand it does not remove the court's ultimate discretion. Courts read this preamble closely for signs of pressure, so it is drafted to show a considered, mutual decision.
• The full financial disclosure schedule is the backbone of any enforceable prenup. Each party lists assets, liabilities, income and pension interests in an appendix, because Radmacher treats a material lack of disclosure as a reason to reduce or ignore the agreement. A prenup signed without honest disclosure is the single most common way these documents fail.
• The independent legal advice clause records that each party had the opportunity to take separate advice from their own solicitor, or made an informed choice to waive it. Separate advice is one of the strongest indicators that a party appreciated the implications of what they signed, and the template captures the adviser's details for exactly that reason.
• The treatment of non-matrimonial and matrimonial property draws the line the couple wants the court to see. Pre-marital assets, inheritances and gifts are ring-fenced, while assets built up jointly during the marriage are dealt with separately, so the agreement distinguishes what was brought in from what was created together.
• The review and variation provision commits the parties to revisit the agreement on major life events such as the birth of a child or a significant change in wealth. A prenup that is never reviewed becomes easier to challenge as circumstances drift away from what the parties first agreed.
• The execution as a deed block gives the document the formality the Law Commission and practitioners regard as best practice, with signatures, witnessing and the date of signing set out correctly.

Prenuptial agreements are a matter of the law of England and Wales, and this template is written for that jurisdiction. The Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 and the Radmacher principles apply across both England and Wales without regional variation, so a prenup drafted here works the same whether the couple marries in Manchester or Cardiff.

Scotland operates a genuinely different system and this document is not designed for it. Scottish family law under the Family Law (Scotland) Act 1985 treats matrimonial property through a statutory framework, and nuptial agreements there are generally given effect unless shown to have been unfair and unreasonable when entered into, a test that differs from the English fairness assessment. Couples marrying in Scotland or intending to live there should use a Scottish agreement drafted to that Act.

Northern Ireland follows principles close to those in England and Wales, with its own procedural rules, and courts there also treat a properly made prenup as a weighty factor rather than a binding contract. The safest approach for a couple with a genuine connection to Northern Ireland is to have the agreement reviewed against local practice before the wedding.

The other cross-border point that matters is domicile and where a divorce might eventually be heard. A couple who marry in England but expect to move abroad, or who each hold assets in different countries, should think about which courts could take jurisdiction, because the weight given to the agreement depends on the forum. Where an international element exists, pairing the prenup with clear estate documents such as a health and welfare lasting power of attorney for England and Wales helps keep the wider financial picture consistent across life events.

You start by entering the full names and addresses of both parties and the intended date of the marriage or civil partnership, since the agreement must be signed comfortably before the ceremony to avoid any suggestion of last-minute pressure. From there the template guides you through the disclosure appendices, where each party sets out assets, debts, income and pensions honestly and in enough detail that the other could not later claim to have been misled. The more complete this schedule, the harder the agreement is to unpick.

Next you define which assets are being ring-fenced as non-matrimonial and how anything built up during the marriage should be treated, adjusting the standard wording to reflect your own situation such as a business holding or an inheritance already received. The template then prompts each party to confirm whether they took independent legal advice, recording the solicitor's details or a considered waiver. Finally you complete the execution block, signing as a deed in the presence of witnesses. Because this is a significant financial document, arranging separate advice for each party before signing is strongly encouraged, and the agreement is delivered in Word and PDF so a solicitor can review or refine the wording before execution.

The mistake that sinks more prenups than any other is thin or absent disclosure. If one party hides the true scale of their wealth, or the schedule is vague, the court can treat the agreement as made without a full appreciation of its implications and give it little weight, which is exactly what happened in the lower courts in Radmacher before the Supreme Court ruling. Closely related is the last-minute signing: an agreement pushed under a partner's nose days before the wedding invites an argument about pressure and duress, and the practical fix is to allow clear time for negotiation, ideally following the sort of cooling-off period the Law Commission has floated, or to use a post-nuptial agreement instead.

The other frequent errors are about fairness and formality. An agreement that tries to leave one spouse with nothing, unable to meet basic needs, is asking the court to step in, because needs and the welfare of any children are precisely where judicial discretion bites hardest and cannot be contracted away. People also forget to review the document as life changes, so a prenup signed by a childless couple in their twenties sits untouched while children arrive and finances transform. Skipping independent legal advice to save time is a false economy, since separate advice is one of the clearest signals that both parties understood what they were agreeing to. Finally, treating the prenup as a substitute for a consent order is a misunderstanding: the agreement guides the court, but the couple still needs a formal order at the point of divorce to make the financial split binding.