Family Partner
DMH Stallard
In the last article on the subject, I raised a query as to whether you want your Solicitor to be a professional or a “salesman”.
The reason for this is due to a huge misunderstanding about Pre-Nuptial Agreements which are quite understandably seen as a simple document.
They may be!
And they may be not!!
Why is whenever you go and see a Solicitor with a very simple and straightforward matter, they always complicate things and, predictably, you emerge with a far greater fee quote than you believed would be forthcoming from your online research.
The choice is of course yours – you are the client and the client is always right. But most clients do, on reflection, want the job done “properly”.
The example that I gave in the last article may be very extreme in that a simple Pre-Nuptial Agreement drafting to ensure that both parties kept what they brought into the marriage, was proven to be wholly unfair. How come? (see link to previous article)
Even when the parties enjoy good health and the extreme misfortune to which I referred did not arise, the blessing of children may.
What will be the impact if there’s a “main carer” who gives up a lucrative career. A graduate in medicine may be earning say £80,000 per year when they decide to look after both parties’ children. After 18 years, they will not be able to command a fraction of the salary that the “go to work” parent then commands, yet their contribution to the family would have been just as great if not greater. Will the receive maintenance?
What maintenance will the children receive in their own right?
Will they be privately educated?
Who will look after them in the foreseeable event of university?
Is that for undergraduate or postgraduate study?
There is a whole raft of questions that need to be answered and there is therefore a convenient link to these here – (link to questionnaire – provided by NCW).
Whatever you do, whoever you instruct, consider these questions – it may be that none of them are applicable to your situation. If that is the case, then you may be one of the lucky individuals who can legitimately have both a correctly and properly drafted tailored Pre-Nuptial Agreement for your circumstances at a reasonable cost. But we can’t pretend that these issues don’t exist.
You are the client; we owe it to you to ensure that you make an informed decision.
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ABOUT NIGEL
Nigel C Winter is a partner in the Family Department of DMH Stallard solicitors, based in London and the South East of England. He has been practicing family law for over two decades, is a collaborative lawyer and a regular contributor to a wide variety of publications on Divorce and Family Law.
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