Pre-nups: the search for certainty continues, says Ed Heaton
In WW v HW [2015] EWHC 1844 (Fam), [2015] All ER (D) 167 (Jul), the parties had entered into an agreement which had provided that neither would make a claim against the other in the event of divorce and yet, by the time of the end of the hearing, they had, between them, run up costs of over £1.7m…
As the judge himself commented: “If ever there were a paradigm example of a case which demonstrates the need for more certainty in the law of financial remedies and nuptial agreements, this is surely it.”
The wife was 46 and the husband 57. The parties had met in 2000 and had entered into a pre-nuptial agreement in June 2002, at the wife’s instigation. The agreement was intended to protect the wife’s financial resources, which amounted to around £27m by the time of the hearing. They included interests in an historic stately home and a very valuable painting by a celebrated 16th century artist, and originated from the wife’s father, who had died in 1972, when she had been
