News

Law Commission update on pre-nuptial agreements

Release date: 13/06/2008

Footballer Wayne Rooney and childhood sweetheart Coleen McLoughlin, may have just got their four-day, multi-million pound wedding extravaganza underway with a glitzy civil ceremony on the Italian Riviera, but speculation is already rife as to whether the pair have a pre-nuptial agreement in place.

Add to this bookmakers' odds of 10/1 that the Rooney marriage lasts less than a year, Heather Mills and Paul McCartney's recent bitter, high-profile legal battle, and it's no surprise the couple's marriage will be under the microscope.

But regardless of what celebrities opt to do, pre-nuptial agreements could soon become legally binding under a review of the law being carried out by Government reform body, the Law Commission.

At present pre-nuptial agreements are considered by the courts - but they are not strictly legally binding.

The Law Commission has so far ruled out looking at the law on the splitting of a couple's assets on divorce - despite calls that they should be. Instead the commission will scrutinise the circumstances in which pre-nuptial agreements should be upheld, with the aim of drafting a Parliamentary Bill within the next five years.

Jane Cowley, head of family law at Midlands' law firm Harvey Ingram, believes a review of pre-nuptial agreements is long overdue.

She says: "Courts are already giving weight to pre-nuptial agreements, so it could be argued that formally giving them legal status is long-overdue.

"The lack of any such agreements for celebrities - or any couples with even a modest high net-worth - could prompt a long and bitter dispute if divorce proceedings got underway. There's clearly a need and a growing demand for these agreements. Hardly a week goes by when reports of disputes between high flyers in the City and their so-called 'gold-digging suitors', doesn't appear in the press."