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English Prenuptial Agreements

By Jeremy Morley

a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ySg-RK3MUak/SSrMZuuKEeI/AAAAAAAABOQ/OEv9vnoH9X4/s1600-h/English+judge.jpg"img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 196px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ySg-RK3MUak/SSrMZuuKEeI/AAAAAAAABOQ/OEv9vnoH9X4/s200/English+judge.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5272251056201011682" border="0" //abr /!--[if gte mso 9]xml w:worddocument w:viewNormal/w:View w:zoom0/w:Zoom w:punctuationkerning/ w:validateagainstschemas/ w:saveifxmlinvalidfalse/w:SaveIfXMLInvalid w:ignoremixedcontentfalse/w:IgnoreMixedContent w:alwaysshowplaceholdertextfalse/w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText w:compatibility w:breakwrappedtables/ w:snaptogridincell/ w:wraptextwithpunct/ w:useasianbreakrules/ w:dontgrowautofit/ w:usefelayout/ /w:Compatibility w:browserlevelMicrosoftInternetExplorer4/w:BrowserLevel /w:WordDocument /xml![endif]--!--[if gte mso 9]xml w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156" /w:LatentStyles /xml![endif]--!--[if !mso]object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"/object style st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /style ![endif]-- !-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"MS Mincho"; panose-1:2 2 6 9 4 2 5 8 3 4; mso-font-alt:"?? ??"; mso-font-charset:128; mso-generic-font-family:modern; mso-font-pitch:fixed; mso-font-signature:-1610612033 1757936891 16 0 131231 0;} @font-face {font-family:"\@MS Mincho"; panose-1:2 2 6 9 4 2 5 8 3 4; mso-font-charset:128; mso-generic-font-family:modern; mso-font-pitch:fixed; mso-font-signature:-1610612033 1757936891 16 0 131231 0;} /* Style Definitions */ /style!--[if gte mso 10] style /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} /style ![endif]--span style=";font-family:Arial;font-size:100%;" lang="EN"span style="font-weight: bold;"A critical case on English prenuptial law is currently being heard by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which is the highest appeals court for /spanst1:country-region style="font-weight: bold;" st="on"UK/st1:country-regionspan style="font-weight: bold;" overseas territories including the /spanst1:place style="font-weight: bold;" st="on"Isle of Man/st1:placespan style="font-weight: bold;", where the parties live.br /br //spano:p/o:p/span p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin-bottom: 15.6pt; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"span style=";font-family:Arial;font-size:100%;" lang="EN"The current state of the law in st1:place st="on"st1:country-region st="on"England/st1:country-region/st1:place is that prenuptial agreements are considered as just one factor in determining a resolution of the financial claims of divorcing parties. The Law Lords in the pending case might decide to give prenuptial full legal recognition, thereby bringing st1:country-region st="on"st1:place st="on"England/st1:place/st1:country-region into line with most of the rest of the world. o:p/o:p/span/p p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin-bottom: 15.6pt; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"span style=";font-family:Arial;font-size:100%;" lang="EN"The last time the Law Lords looked at the issue was in 1929, when they ruled that binding prenuptial contracts would contravene public policy. Obviously the world has changed dramatically since that time.o:p/o:p/span/p p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin-bottom: 15.6pt; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;"span style=";font-family:Arial;font-size:100%;" lang="EN"See my article on this topic at a href="http://www.international-divorce.com/england_-_prenuptial.htm"http://www.international-divorce.com/england_-_prenuptial.htm/ao:p/o:p/span/p p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin-bottom: 15.6pt; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"span style=";font-family:Arial;font-size:100%;" lang="EN"It is possible that the court will prefer to leave the issue to Parliament. The English Law Commission is currently consulting on the issue but its recommendations are unlikely to be issued until 2012.o:p/o:p/span/p p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin-bottom: 15.6pt; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"span style=";font-family:Arial;font-size:100%;" lang="EN"Stay tuned for further developments.o:p/o:p/span/p span style=";font-family:Arial;font-size:10;" lang="EN"span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" Disclosure: I am advising the husband in this case./span/spanp class="MsoNormal" style="background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; margin-bottom: 15.6pt; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;"span style=";font-family:Arial;font-size:10;" lang="EN"span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" /spano:p/o:p/span/p

Full post as published by International Family Law on November 14, 2008 (boomark / email).