Q: My girlfriend (of the last decade) and I have split up – we’d been living together for eight years and whilst the mortgage was in my name she paid half the monthly mortgage. In this time my flat has gone up about £100,000 in value and she has made noises about wanting some type of financial settlement. She says she has wasted her money on my mortgage when she could have been paying her own. I don’t know what I am obliged to do legally (or morally!) Please advise.
A: Whatever way you look at it law and morality are bedfellows – no matter how uncomfortable this may be. Even though she doesn’t have a right enshrined in statute, if she decided to, she can go down a costly and detrimental route (for both of you) in order to recoup her financial investment.
As you are the sole owner of the property she is unlikely to have any rights to stay if you ask her to leave. However it is likely that a court will find that she has a financial interest in the property. She could even stop you from selling your home.
But by being sensible, you can both avoid this. Make it clear to her you’re going to be fair and sort this out, but let the dust settle first.
To avoid the acrimony and expense of lawyers you both need to sit down and work out the value of her contribution vis a vis the current value of the property. Then you would be able to establish what percentage of the property she effectively ‘owns’ and pay her this amount in order to settle any potential claim. Or you could agree that upon the sale of the property you will pay her a sum that reflects her contribution. Both of these options would need a simple legal ‘letter agreement’ in order to reflect the full and final settlement of her claim and prevent any future claims.
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Q: I have just got engaged to my girlfriend and we are now busy making arrangements for our engagement party and our wedding next year. I work for a hedge fund and am making a very healthy six figures. My girlfriend is a nursery school teacher and doesn’t earn very much money. I am paying for our wedding and our new family home and fully expect to be the provider in our relationship going forward. My parents have expressed concern about the fact that I am not entering into a pre-nuptial agreement, particularly as I am due to inherit a significant chunk of money on my 35th birthday from a trust set up by my grandfather. I didn’t think that pre nups were valid in this country. I also feel incredibly uncomfortable about bringing this up particularly as my girlfriend has always been rather sensitive to the disparity in our wealth. Help!
A: Pre-nuptial agreements are not romantic but for many wealthy individuals they have become part of the wedding plans alongside arranging the engagement party and honeymoon. The fact is that a significant percentage of marriages end in divorce and it is sensible to protect inherited wealth and pre-marriage assets and income. The UK is finally catching up with the rest of Europe where pre-nuptials have been recognised for years. The courts take these agreements seriously but it is imperative that independent legal advice has been taken by both parties and full financial disclosure takes place. In other word they won’t uphold a letter drafted by a husband to be signed off by the bride to be that foregoes any claim to her husband’s pre-marriage wealth. So it is important to do things properly in order for the pre-nuptial to be upheld in the future if needs be. I can understand your reticence to bring this delicate subject up with your girlfriend, particularly as you have just got engaged and her sensitivity as to the subject of your differing financial statuses. However my advice would be to get one. Maybe your marriage will last forever but in the event that it doesn’t your pre-nuptial agreement will mean you have more certainty as to the financial settlement. Choose your moment carefully. Perhaps wait until the initial excitement has settled and wedding discussions turn to practicalities and then raise the subject. But don’t avoid it. Paul McCartney may have sung about love being all you need but I bet you he is wishing he hadn’t disregarded a pre-nuptial agreement as being unromantic. When anyone enters into a marriage, love is normally an essential element. When that person is wealthy, so is a pre-nup.
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