In Australia, a prenuptial agreement is referred by the Family Law Act as a Binding Financial Agreement (BFA). A prenup is a legally binding financial agreement between two people who are meaning to get married (a similar agreement can be prepared if two people are planning to live together in a de facto relationship).

A prenup records what assets and debts each person brings into the relationship and states what will happen in the event that the relationship breaks down (separation or divorce), and how the couple’s finances will be divided.

1   Prenups must comply with strict legal guidelines as outlined in the Family Law Act (1975).
2 They must be in writing.
3 Each person must have received independent legal advice before signing the prenup.
4 The legal advice provided must have come from a lawyer in the Australian jurisdiction.
5   Each person must have signed the prenup voluntarily (free from coercion, duress or undue influence). This means one person cannot tell the other that they will not marry them unless they sign a prenup.
6   The prenup should contain a complete disclosure of each person’s financial standing.

You should each work out what it is that you want then individually see your own solicitor for advice. Once this is done and the final wording agreed to, you each sigh in the presence of your own independent solicitor who will sigh that you are each making these decisions of your own free will and that you have each received independent legal advice.

Unless the BFA is made this way, it is unenforceable in a court.