From Pre-nups to Post-nups: Dealing with Marital Property Agreements

Emma Hitchings School of Law Bristol University

This article presents preliminary findings from a study of marital property agreements. The research was commissioned as a prelude to the Law Commission's project on marital property agreements in order to provide much needed research from a qualitative perspective into how legal professionals draft such agreements advise clients and deal with existing agreements. The Law Commission's project commenced on 1 October 2009 and it is anticipated that a report and draft Bill will be published in late 2012. The full research report upon which this article is based will be published on the Law Commission's website at the same time as the Consultation Paper.

Readers of Family Law will be extremely familiar with the recent court machinations on the subject of marital property agreements which has led Wilson LJ to suggest that there is a 'lack of clarity in the treatment of pre-nuptial contracts under our present law' (Radmacher v Granatino [2008] EWCA Civ 649 [2009] 2 FLR (forthcoming) at para [128] hereafter referred to as Radmacher. For a detailed commentary see J Miles...

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