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Jenny Higgins
Jane Keir, partner in Kingsley Napley's family & divorce team, shares her thoughts on reconciliation contracts with Sally Hamilton in article in the money section of The Mail on Sunday.
Jane Keir, a partner at law firm Kingsley Napley, has come up with a clever way of taking the sting out of the arrangements. She is promoting a new style of contract to help couples deal with these tricky money issues as part of a so-called ‘reconciliation contract’.
The contract is a form of pre-nup – or more accurately a post-nup – that sets out how assets like a property should be shared while a couple remains together. This includes new arrangements to ease their path ahead, such as setting up a pension plan for the party who did not have one – plus, crucially, outlining arrangements should they ultimately split up.
Keir tells me the contract, inspired by similar arrangements in the US, can include agreements on behaviour as well as property. A partner might agree to curb adulterous or addictive conduct or even pledge to spend more time with their other half or commit to taking an annual holiday together.
She says: ‘The pastoral arrangements cannot be enforced by a UK court. But the agreements over property are likely to be looked on more kindly by judges as they see the couple had previously tried to make the marriage work – and had made these pledges when on good terms rather than in the grip of an ill-tempered break up.’
Click HERE to view the article published on 30 September 2017.
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