ICLG 2026 – Marcus Dearle provides expert analysis on nuptial agreements

Cases go wrong when parties do not obtain, or if they do, follow, standard legal advice and practice, and attempt to cut corners.

Marcus, as contributing editor of the ICLG Family Cross Border Guide 2026, publishes his article “Probing beneath the surface of the judgments in the very recent cases of Standish v Standish, PN v SA and Helliwell v Entwistle” in which he also “cautions that a dangerous consequence of underestimating the complexity of nuptial agreements is the wrong-headed assumption they should be prepared ‘on the cheap’, without securing sufficient expert and detailed independent legal advice essential to their enforceability. This is a false economy when often tens or hundreds of millions of pounds are at risk in terms of the potential court awards which may be made, dwarfing the total of all legal fees that will be incurred if a proper professional job is done.”

He says: “Don’t just think about saving tax (in particular income and inheritance tax); also think about divorce. Use nuptial agreements.”

PN v SA [2025] EWFC 141

Marcus stresses that “we need to shine a spotlight on the stress, turmoil and pain that often exists behind the scenes in these types of cases.”

Standish v Standish [2025] UKSC 26

Marcus states: “Standish is yet another case where it would have been better if there had been a nuptial agreement, a case in which the importance of the parties’ legitimate tax avoidance arrangements appeared to trump family asset protection arrangements in the context of divorce through the use of a nuptial agreement.”

Helliwell v Entwistle [2025] EWCA Civ 1055

Marcus states: “Helliwell is not a case that changes the law. It is not exceptional. It is a case of showing a basic failure on the part of the financially stronger wife to provide full and frank financial disclosure when she had expressly stated in the pre-nuptial agreement that she had already ‘fully and frankly disclosed’.”

As the Court of Appeal made clear:

“The law is unchanged. So long as there is no statutory scheme, Radmacher will continue to bind this court; disclosure is desirable but not essential and that is equally the case with legal advice. Pre-nuptial agreements are about the autonomy of the parties to determine for themselves what should be the fair outcome in the event that their marriage fails.”

Marcus reported that the Court of Appeal hearing itself (viewable on YouTube), King LJ, who gave the lead judgment, revealingly stated:
“You can make choices about how you’re going to tackle disclosure. If you decide there’s going to be disclosure, then you disclose.”

Marcus also highlights concerns about failing to define ‘reasonable needs’ in nuptial agreements:

“During nuptial agreement negotiations, the author has regularly encountered situations where parties – for costsaving reasons – fail to quantify the financially weaker party’s reasonable needs at all and a clause is set out in the agreement simply stating that the financially stronger party in the event of marital breakdown will pay a sum covering the financially party’s reasonable needs ‘to be agreed’. This is a highly risky practice when hundreds of thousands of pounds can be spent arguing this point alone. It is another example of the false economy of making the saving of legal costs a priority. Frustrating one of the very objectives of having a nuptial agreement in the first place.”

The ICLG Family Laws and Regulations is available here, with Marcus’ article available to download here, containing insight and analysis of these cases and the state of nuptial agreements and how they are viewed by the court.