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What Assets Will Be Shared in a Divorce and How To Protect Assets From Being Shared In A Financial Settlement?

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The 2025 case of Standish v Standish [2025] UKSC 26.

The Supreme Court has ruled on what assets should be shared and how they should be shared when a couple divorces.

In this article, our Family Lawyers analyse the Supreme Court ruling of 2 July 2025 in the case of Standish v Standish and explain what it means for high-net-worth individuals and their families looking to preserve family wealth from divorce.

Contact the Family Law Team at OTS Solicitors in London for a phone, online or office consultation.

The Standish court decision

The court ruling is referred to as Standish (Appellant) v Standish (Respondent), and the citation is [2025] UKSC 26.

Lord Burrows and Lord Stephens wrote the judgment, and the other Supreme Court justices (the President Lord Reed, Lord Lloyd-Jones, and Lady Simler) were in unanimous agreement.

The Standish Supreme Court decision on the principles of financial settlements and sharing

The Standish Supreme Court decision is of wide application and interest because it does three things:

  1. It clarifies how family assets should be shared in financial applications.
  2. It confirms that the sharing principle does not apply if an asset is not considered to be a family asset or matrimonial asset by the court.
  3. It clarifies and offers guidance to Family Law Solicitors on when non-family assets can become family assets and be subject to the principle of being shared between the husband and wife in financial court proceedings.

The Standish court decision on the sharing principle and family assets

There are three long-established principles of family law that:

  1. If a couple has family assets (also referred to as matrimonial property), those assets will be shared by the court when the couple divorces and one spouse requests that the court make a financial order.
  2. An asset, such as a property or investment, can be a family asset if it is owned in the joint names of the husband and wife or if it is owned in one of their names.
  3. If there is a dispute over whether an asset is a family or matrimonial asset or not, the court can rule on the classification of the asset.

The judges in the Standish case stated that family assets comprise the fruits of the marriage, but those fruits don’t need to be owned jointly; that’s not what is important in determining whether an asset is a matrimonial or non-matrimonial asset.

The judges also reiterated a principle from earlier family court rulings, namely, although there can be a departure from equality, the starting point when splitting matrimonial property is that it should be shared equally.

There are many reasons why family wealth may not be split equally. For example, if the spouse with care of the children cannot provide a home for the children unless they receive more than half of the family's wealth.

The Standish court decision on the sharing principle and non-family assets

The Supreme Court held that the sharing of family wealth in financial court proceedings does not apply to non-marital or non-family assets.

The exception to this is when the family court is determining what Family Law Solicitors refer to as a 'needs case'.  A needs case is one where, even if the court awards all the family assets to one spouse, that spouse’s needs cannot be met without also receiving a share of the non-family assets.  For example, even with all the equity in the family home, the spouse cannot afford to rehouse themselves and their young children without also receiving a share of the money saved up or inherited by their spouse before the marriage.

The Standish decision emphasises the need for Family Law Solicitors to:

  1. Understand and provide expert legal advice on the definition of family assets and non-family assets and needs arguments, and
  2. Advise on how best to protect non-family assets and ensure they are classed as non-matrimonial property.

When can a non-family asset become a family asset?

Families are complicated, and so are their finances. This was recognised in the Standish decision.

An asset may initially be considered a non-matrimonial asset but become a family asset during the marriage. The judges referred to this concept as ‘’Matrimonialisation’’.

If a non-matrimonial asset is matrimonialised, it becomes a family asset and, under the family court principles, is available for sharing between the husband and wife.

Accordingly, spouses, their Family Lawyers, and wealth advisors need to know:

  1. How an asset morphs from a non-matrimonial asset to family property, and
  2. How to prevent an asset from being matrimonialised.

The Supreme Court said:

Matrimonialisation occurs where there is intention by the contributor to share non-marital property, coupled with treatment by the parties of this non-marital property as shared over time.

The court said:

  1. Matrimonialisation should not be applied narrowly or widely by the family court.
  2. When deciding if a non-matrimonial asset has become family property, what matters is how the husband and wife have dealt with the non-family assets and whether this course of dealing shows that, over time, the couple treated the asset as shared and matrimonialised.
  3. If a spouse wants a share in the non-family assets, they must demonstrate that the other spouse intended to treat those assets as marital property, despite them initially being non-matrimonial, and that they were treated as such during the marriage.
  4. The longer that a particular asset is treated as shared by the husband and wife, the stronger the evidence that the asset has moved from being a non-family asset into a matrimonialised asset.
  5. Divorcing spouses and their lawyers need to consider proportionality when arguing whether an asset is a family asset or not, or if it has become a matrimonialised asset.

The decision in the case of Standish v Standish

In Standish, the Supreme Court ruled that the husband had not matrimonialised non-family assets when he transferred them to his wife. Accordingly, they remained non-family assets and were not subject to the principle of sharing.

The wife’s financial award was reduced to £25 million, representing her share of the assets the court determined to be family assets.

In the case of Mr and Mrs Standish, until 2017, most of Mr Standish’s wealth, apart from the jointly owned family home, was held in his sole name. In 2017, he transferred £80 million to his wife as part of a tax mitigation strategy. Instead of transferring the assets into a trust as part of a planned wealth protection strategy, Mrs Standish separated from her husband and later initiated divorce proceedings. She claimed a share of the £80 million, asserting that this money had become family wealth by virtue of the money transfer. The Supreme Court disagreed and stated that the purpose of the transfer was tax mitigation for the benefit of the children, not to facilitate matrimonialisation.

The Supreme Court said:

‘‘There was ‘no matrimonialisation’ of the assets because ‘the transfer was to save tax’ and ‘it was for the benefit of the children not the wife’. The money transferred in 2017 was ‘not being treated by the husband and wife for any period of time as an asset that was shared between them’’.

The lessons from the Standish ruling

What can couples, their Family Law Solicitors, wealth and financial advisors, accountants, tax advisors, and Family Offices learn from this important Supreme Court decision?

At OTS Solicitors, our Family Lawyers say there are five lessons:

  1. If you want an asset to be regarded and treated as a non-family asset, it should be recorded as a non-family asset in a prenuptial agreement. If you are a high-net-worth individual, consider jurisdictional issues and the need for mirror prenuptial agreements if you have family connections to more than one country.
  2. If you want to change an asset from a non-matrimonial asset to a shared asset, then you should review the terms of the prenuptial agreement and amend it to reflect the new circumstances.
  3. If you want to avoid costly arguments on whether post-marriage acquired assets are matrimonial or non-matrimonial assets (such as a gift of money from extended family or an inheritance), then you should sign a postnuptial agreement to record the status of the asset.
  4. If you want to avoid the drift of an asset from non-family property to matrimonial property through matrimonialisation, you need to take specialist family law legal advice to protect your family wealth.
  5. When you start financial proceedings, or respond to them, it is crucial to consult a Family Law Solicitor who can advise on the merits and cost effectiveness of raising the status of non-matrimonial and matrimonial property and matrimonialisation arguments.

If you would like to discuss how the Supreme Court decision may affect your divorce or your wealth planning strategy, or that of your clients, our Family Law Solicitors can advise on the Standish implications and how to use it as a wake-up call to record if an asset is matrimonial or not and when and how to review its classification.

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For family law advice, contact the expert London Family Lawyers at OTS Solicitors on 0203 959 9123 or complete our online enquiry form.

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