If you are getting divorced, you may be concerned that you wish to protect assets you inherited from your family members from being within the ‘pot’ of assets to divide with your spouse.

The general starting point is that the court will consider all the circumstances of the case, including both parties financial resources, which would include any inherited wealth one party has received. The inherited wealth cannot be concealed from the court.

However there is a developing concept that inherited wealth ought to be treated differently to assets that were built up together during the marriage, because the assets you have inherited are not ‘fruits of the marriage’.  The argument is that the inherited assets ought to be treated as “Non-Matrimonial” and therefore excluded from the pot to divide.

Lord Nicholls in the case of White v White made clear that if the inherited asset or inherited wealth is needed to be included in the pot to meet the reasonable needs of both parties, then it will be included.

However, if both parties reasonable needs can be met without the asset being considered, then it can be treated as non-matrimonial.

A number of other factors will be considered by the court as relevant, including the length of your marriage and the extent to which the inherited asset was intermingled with your day-to-day married life.

Parties would be best advised to sign a pre-nup or post-nup agreement to anticipate how inherited wealth will be dealt with in the event of a divorce.

If you would like any further information or advice in relation to inherited wealth and divorce, our specialist family lawyers are happy to help. Our lawyers have offices based in Wolverhampton and Cradley Heath and provide assistance to clients across the West Midlands including: Stourbridge, Kidderminster, Birmingham, Dudley and Walsall.

For all new enquiries, please call 01902 328 355 or 01384 340569, alternatively you can complete our online enquiry form and a member of our team will respond.