Pre-Nup Contracts Carry No Weight in Court

It might have been the perfect solution for Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, but for an Australian couple, a pre-nuptial agreement is just not worth the effort.

While Zeta-Jones will sit pretty on $5.15 million for every year she and Douglas were together if the couple split, an Australian Judge is just as likely to throw a similar agreement out the window when an Aussie marriage sours.

However, for those couples with no intention of ever walking down the aisle, a pre-nuptial agreement is binding.

A change to the property law recently has seen to it that a pre-nuptial contract signed by both parties in a de facto relationship is legally binding.

"There has never been protection for de facto couples before, but now a type of pre-nuptial agreement can be reached," says Bill Ross.

"Pre-nuptial agreements are only binding in Australia when no nuptials will be exchanged."

This means the more traditional couple is forced to leave their fate up to the Family Law Court if the relationship ends.

"We have a lot of enquiries about it," said Bill Ross.

"But most people don't bother when you tell them that it's not legally binding"

"The court still has jurisdiction to rule as it sees fit."

Bill Ross said the only relevance an agreement of this nature held in Australian law was to give an indication to the presiding judge how much each party brought to the relationship.

"That is an important factor in court - determining how much each person contributed."

"A judge will use it as a guide but will make his or her own decision on how much each party should receive."

He said he had only seen one or two cases where people had actually followed through with the agreement in the past two years.

"And they are generally only very wealthy clients."

However, all of this could be about to change.

Bill Ross believes the Federal Parliament was poised to pass legislation to make pre-nuptial agreements legally binding.

Back to Articles