As the Government consults on reforms to where and how couples can marry through its Tying the Knot consultation, it is a timely reminder that marriage involves more than planning the ceremony. The proposals, published in July 2026, focus on venues, officiants and the ceremony itself. They say nothing about what happens to a couple’s finances if the marriage later breaks down.
That question falls within a different, and arguably more consequential, area of family law. Engaged couples tend to spend their planning energy on dresses and guest lists, leaving money conversations until much later, if they happen at all. Yet a prenuptial agreement, drawn up calmly before the wedding rather than in the aftermath of a separation, can do more to protect both partners, and any children involved, than almost any other document a couple will sign that year. The law governing these agreements has shifted significantly over the last fifteen years and continues to evolve.
From gentleman’s agreement to decisive weight
English law has never treated marriage as a purely financial contract. Under the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, a court retains wide discretion to divide a couple’s assets on divorce according to what it considers fair taking into account financial needs, and for decades that discretion sat above anything a couple might privately agree between themselves. A prenuptial agreement could be produced to a judge, but there was no guarantee it would carry any real influence over the outcome.
That changed with the Supreme Court’s 2010 judgment in Radmacher v Granatino. The case involved a German heiress and her French former husband, who had signed a prenuptial agreement shortly before their wedding recording that neither would make a financial claim against the other if the marriage ended. The Supreme Court held by a majority that the agreement should be given decisive weight, since it had been entered into freely by both parties with a full appreciation of what it meant and proper fair process followed.
The judgment did not make prenuptial agreements binding in the way a commercial contract is binding. A judge still retains the power to depart from an agreement where holding the parties to it would be genuinely unfair. What Radmacher did was reverse the starting assumption. Rather than beginning from the position that an agreement carries little weight, the courts now start from the position that a fair, freely negotiated agreement should generally be followed.
Where the courts still draw a line
The cases decided since Radmacher show fairly consistently where that line falls. Independent expert legal advice for both parties, honest and full disclosure of assets before signing, and enough time between signing and the wedding for the decision to feel considered rather than rushed, are all factors the courts look for. An agreement that meets those tests is far more likely to be followed closely. One that does not, because a party had no advice, or because assets were concealed, or because the agreement was presented days before the ceremony, is much more vulnerable to challenge.
Children add a further layer that couples often overlook. In Luckwell v Limata in 2014, the High Court gave real weight to a wealthy wife’s prenuptial and postnuptial agreements, which left her husband with almost nothing on divorce, but declined to hold him to their full effect. The judge was troubled by the prospect of the couple’s children dividing their time between a mother living in considerable comfort and a father unable to house them properly.
The case is a reminder that even a well-drafted agreement will not be allowed to leave either partner, or the children of the marriage, without their basic needs met and must be fair. Couples who understand that l from the outset tend to draft agreements that work with it, building in provision for a non-earning spouse rather than attempting a clean, all-or-nothing split that a court is unlikely to enforce in full.
What should couples do?
Couples considering a prenuptial agreement should start the conversation early, exchange full and honest financial information, and each take independent legal advice before signing. Leaving the discussion until the weeks before the wedding, or treating disclosure as optional, are among the most common ways an otherwise sensible agreement ends up carrying far less weight than the couple intended.
Will prenups ever become legally binding?
Just as Tying the Knot is reshaping how couples marry, a slower moving debate has been underway for years over what happens if that marriage ends. There has long been an appetite to make nuptial agreements properly binding by statute, rather than leaving their weight to judicial discretion case by case. The Law Commission recommended exactly that in its 2014 report on Matrimonial Property, Needs and Agreements, proposing a new category of qualifying nuptial agreement enforceable subject to safeguards. Little happened with that recommendation for the best part of a decade, until a broader scoping report on financial remedies, published in December 2024, revived the debate without settling it.
In February 2025, Baroness Deech used a House of Lords debate to press ministers on the issue directly, arguing that binding nuptial agreements were overdue and expressing frustration that the 2024 report had stopped short of firm recommendations. As things stand, no legislation has been brought forward and no timetable has been set for one. Couples who are inclined to wait for binding prenups to become law before putting an agreement of their own in place could be waiting a considerable time yet, and in the meantime the protection available under Radmacher remains very real for anyone willing to use it properly.
Why couples put one in place anyway
A prenuptial agreement tends to matter most where one partner is bringing significantly more wealth into the marriage than the other, where a family business or farm needs to stay outside the reach of a future claim, where an inheritance has been earmarked for children from an earlier relationship, or where either partner has been through a difficult divorce before and wants clarity from the outset this time. A postnuptial agreement offers the same protection for couples who are already married and only later decide they want that clarity recorded in writing.
Couples sometimes worry that raising the subject will seem unromantic, or will suggest a lack of trust. In practice, the opposite tends to be true. Agreeing openly what would happen in the worst case allows both partners to enter the marriage with clear expectations, rather than assumptions that may turn out to have been quite different on each side. It is also worth remembering that marriage has an entirely separate legal consequence for a Will, since an existing Will is automatically revoked by marriage under the Wills Act 1837 unless it was made in contemplation of that specific wedding. Couples already reviewing their finances before the big day are often well advised to deal with both issues at the same time.
If you are getting married and want to understand what a prenuptial agreement could do for you, Buckles’ family team can talk you through the options well ahead of the wedding, so the conversation happens on your terms, with proper advice and plenty of time to spare before the big day.
