Following a recent report from the UBS stating that the next generation of billionaires are set to derive more wealth from inheritance than entrepreneurship, there has been a significant rise in UHNW and HNW individuals who are considering gifting their children a house deposit or leaving them an inheritance to do so on condition that they draft a pre or postnuptial agreement.

Partner Mark Harper commented that decisions on the usefulness of agreements can depend “on where you are living in the country in terms of how much housing costs. We have a phrase that, on asset division on divorce, needs trump all.”

He further explained that if the parents of one spouse have paid for a property deposit as a gift rather than a loan, then on divorce the court will normally rely on a 2006 law lords ruling to override what a prenup says when it comes to the ownership of a family home in a bid to create two homes out of one.

Mark added: “It is not clear since the Radmacher decision as to whether it is possible to contract out of that aspect of the sharing principle.”

Read Mark’s comments in The Times, here.