Dispute over divorce settlement including future inheritance    

The Family Court has ruled on a dispute over whether a couple’s divorce settlement should take into account potential future payments and inheritance from the husband’s father.   

Julian Nelson, Director in our Family Law Team reports on this recent case.

The case involved a couple who had met in 2001 and married in 2004.       

The husband was from a very wealthy family. The couple entered into a pre-marital agreement, as required by the husband’s father.       

Under the agreement, the husband transferred his London property into joint names. The couple owned further properties in Switzerland.       

Their lifestyle was largely funded by the husband’s father, who gave the husband several hundred thousand pounds each year.       

The couple had children, aged 16 and 13, who were based primarily with the wife and attended independent schools in London. The wife had stopped working when the first child was born.       

The husband’s work involved managing the family’s wealth.       

When they divorced, they reached a post-marital agreement in 2017, but the wife did not sign it.       

The agreement provided for the wife to receive around 56% of the couple’s net assets of £12.6 million.       

The husband’s father stopped making payments to him when the divorce proceedings began.       

At the same time, the father, having previously put assets into a trust for the benefit of the husband and his siblings upon the father’s death, transferred the assets back to himself.       

The wife claimed her father-in-law’s assets should be considered in the divorce settlement.       

The husband argued the assessment of assets should not include any expectation of resumed payments or inheritance from his father.       

The judge said the evidence showed that the wife had not been under undue pressure to enter into either the pre-marital agreement or the post-marital agreement, both of which showed that the parties had always understood that future inheritances should be excluded from claims by the other party.      

The fact that the wife had eventually chosen not to sign meant that it had not formally been completed. However, the court would not simply ignore the agreement as it needed to take account of all the circumstances of the case.      

Although the court could not ignore the possibility that the husband’s father would disentitle his children, it was more likely that the husband would at some point receive a significant inheritance.       

However, it would be entirely non-matrimonial, received long after separation.       

The court assessed the wife’s needs at £7.45 million, including a transfer of the London property to her. That was about 60% of the total current marital assets.      

If you would like more information about the issues raised in this article or any aspect family law please contact our team on 01228 516666.