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Prenups look set to become the must-have fashion accessory of lovers before they wed.
This week saw a decision for Susan Crossley to drop her claim for a slice of her fourth husband's £45 million fortune is a boost to the status of prenuptial agreements in English law — confirming that they are highly pertinant in any decision on assets, if not strictly binding.
Mrs Crossley had signed a prenuptial agreement agreeing that neither she nor her husband Stuart would claim a penny of each other's wealth if the marriage broke up. Her husband has described her as a "career divorcee" (she has netted £18 million from her previous three marriages) This time her marriage lasted 18 months before it fell apart completely.
She claimed that the prenup was invalid — arguing that her property
tycoon husband had failed to disclose millions he held in offshore
accounts. In a landmark ruling last December Lord Justice Thorpe, deputy
head of family justice, sitting with two other appeal judges, said: "If
ever there is to be a paradigm case in which the court will look to
the prenuptial agreement as not simply one of the peripheral factors
of the case but as a factor of magnetic importance . . . this is just
such a case."
© The Small Claims and Insolvency Advisory Service Ltd 2005-8
