A pre-nup is an agreement designed to regulate what will happen to your wealth should your marriage breakdown, so there are many reasons why you should consider one. In divorce situations, judges in the Family Court have a very wide discretion to divide a family's finances according to what the court think it’s fair. This includes wide powers to transfer or sell assets and share future income. A pre-nup narrows that wide judicial discretion.
In many cases, there is an assumption that the fair thing to do is to divide all the assets equally between the divorcing couple, and there may also be a significant element of maintenance to pay. Pre-nups can be used to limit claims to far less than half of all assets, to “ring-fence” specific assets, such as a family business or inheritance, from a future claim, or to limit the amount and duration of any maintenance.