What happens if you don’t sign a prenup: ten days to the wedding

The legal issue

Both had been married before and had been engaged for about a year. He owned a business his father had started and the house they planned to live in; she owned a flat she meant to sell. Ten days before the wedding, after the invitations had gone out, he handed her a prenuptial agreement prepared by his lawyers and told her to sign it by Friday or the wedding was off. It left her with only what she brought into the marriage and nothing towards a home, and it gave no figures for the business. She wanted to know what happens if you don't sign a prenup, and whether one signed like this would hold up in court.

The law this rests on

• Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 s.25(1): in deciding whether to exercise its financial powers under sections 23, 24, 24A, 24B or 24E, and if so how, the court must have regard to all the circumstances of the case, first consideration being given to the welfare while a minor of any child of the family who has not attained the age of eighteen.
• Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 s.25(2): the matters the court has regard to include each party's income, earning capacity, property and other financial resources; their financial needs, obligations and responsibilities; the standard of living before the breakdown of the marriage; their ages and the duration of the marriage; any disability; their contributions to the welfare of the family, including looking after the home or caring for the family; conduct where it would be inequitable to disregard it; and the value of any benefit lost on divorce.
• In England and Wales a prenuptial agreement is not binding by statute. The Law Commission (Matrimonial Property, Needs and Agreements, Law Com No 343, February 2014) explains that only legislation could let couples enforce agreements without the court's discretion under the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, and that an agreement cannot oust the court's power to make financial orders, so either spouse can still apply to the court for financial provision.
• The courts' approach, as the Law Commission sets it out: the court should give effect to a nuptial agreement freely entered into by each party with a full appreciation of its implications, unless in the circumstances prevailing it would not be fair to hold the parties to their agreement. An agreement that leaves one spouse in real need while the other enjoys a sufficiency or more is likely to make it unfair to hold them to it.
• Law Commission report, paras 6.46 and 6.87: having to negotiate an agreement during the final stages of the engagement could amount to duress or undue influence, and material non-disclosure is among the factors that could lead a court to decide that an agreement was not freely entered into.
• Law Commission recommendations (2014), not enacted: to qualify, an agreement would have to be made by deed, at least 28 days before the wedding or civil partnership, with disclosure of material information about each other's finances and legal advice for both, and could not be used to contract out of meeting financial needs. The Ministry of Justice consulted on qualifying nuptial agreements from 5 June to 14 August 2026 (A fairer end to relationships), proposing safeguards broadly in line with the Law Commission's, including that the agreement must not be made within the 28 days immediately before the wedding, and that needs would be assessed on a narrower basis if a qualifying agreement were challenged for failing to meet them. It is analysing the responses, and any legislation will be introduced when parliamentary time allows. Until then the law above is unchanged.

How we approached it

We advised her that she did not have to sign by his deadline and that refusing carried no legal penalty: there would simply be no agreement, and any financial claim if the marriage ended would be decided by a court applying the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 s.25. We explained that a prenup signed ten days before the wedding, without figures for the business and without advice of her own, could be found not to have been freely entered into, so it might protect him far less than he hoped.

We advised her to keep every version of the document and his messages about the deadline, and to delete nothing. We helped her write him a short, calm letter that accused no one and proposed a later wedding date, disclosure of finances on both sides, separate advice for each of them and signature at least 28 days before the wedding, the timing the Law Commission recommended in 2014 and the Government's 2026 consultation proposed again.

We then went through each clause with her. We advised that keeping the business for his children was a fair aim, but that leaving her without a home after years of marriage could leave her in real need, which a court was likely to see as unfair.

The outcome

He took the letter to his own lawyers, and the couple moved the wedding back by three months. His accountant provided figures for the business, the house, his pension and his savings, and she set out her own finances. The final agreement said the business and his savings from before the marriage would stay his, left the money from the sale of her flat with her, and gave her a sum towards a home if the marriage ended, rising with its length. Each signed after separate advice, two months before the new date, and they married on that date. A court could still look at the agreement if the marriage ended, and another couple's facts could lead to a different answer.

What to take from this

• Refusing to sign a prenup carries no legal penalty. Parliament has passed no law making prenups binding in England and Wales, and without one a court deciding the finances applies the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 s.25.
• A deadline set by the other person is not a legal deadline. Ask for time in writing and note the date you first saw the agreement.
• Pressure in the last days before a wedding, or a failure to disclose material finances, could lead a court to decide that an agreement was not freely made, so a rushed signature may protect neither of you.
• Ask for written figures for everything the other person owns, give your own, and take advice from your own lawyer.
• Keep every version of the document and every message about it unaltered, and delete nothing. Agree no changes by text, sign no side notes your lawyer has not read, and keep the matter off social media.
• The Law Commission recommended signing at least 28 days before the wedding, and the Government's 2026 consultation proposed the same. It is a proposal, not law, and it is a sensible guide to timing.
• An agreement that leaves one spouse in real need while the other has enough or more is unlikely to be followed in full.