Marriages gone wrong ...

How often do we want to look at divorce, when starting out together? How many of us take pause and think for a moment of the practicalities before we decide on a marriage regime?

The fact is that many marriages fail and an antenuptial contract is the best means of making sure that the assets are divided equally between the spouses.

So often I am asked to draft a antenuptial contract, with accrual but to record the start values as zero. This is a very simple way of making a marriage out of community have the same end effect as a marriage in community of property. This all sounds great at the outset, but many time sometime years, even months down the line, I remind the couple of the consequences of their decisions, which now seem so much more real, now that the spectre of divorce has materialised.

Now, the couple need to realise that in spite of their marriage being out of community of property, the accrual with zero start values translates into the same effects as in community of property.

This often let's one of the parties feel cheated,which is usually the one who contributed the most.

When entering into an antenuptial contract and make sure you know that your decision will have far reaching consequences.