Divorce Assets: Protecting Family Wealth for Couples & Advisers

A Guide to What Assets will be Shared in Divorce Proceedings and how Couples and Their Financial Advisors can Safeguard Family Wealth From Being Shared in Divorce Financial Proceedings

Standish v Standish [2025] UKSC 26.

On 2 July 2025, the Supreme Court ruled on the classification of assets in divorce financial proceedings, specifically whether matrimonial assets and non-matrimonial assets should be shared when the court makes a financial order.

The decision in the Supreme Court case of Standish is important because it emphasises how crucial it is to work with your family law solicitors and financial advisors to ensure family wealth and non-matrimonial property is protected.

At Evolve Family Law, our specialist family lawyers can advise you on wealth protection strategies and advise you in financial settlement negotiations and court proceedings.

For expert family law advice, call our team of specialist family lawyers or complete our online enquiry form.

The Supreme Court decision in Standish v Standish

You can read the full court ruling here.

Supreme Court rulings in family cases are rare due to the high cost and litigation risk associated with appealing from the original decision to the Court of Appeal and then to the Supreme Court.

The decision in Standish radically alters the size of the financial award to Mrs Standish, but it also:

1. Explains how the sharing principle in dividing matrimonial assets should work.
2. Says that the sharing principle does not apply if the asset is a non-matrimonial asset unless it is a needs case.
3. Offers guidance on when a non-matrimonial asset can convert to a matrimonial asset and therefore be subject to the sharing principle.

Matrimonial assets and non-matrimonial assets

Depending on the extent of your family’s wealth, categorising assets into separate pots can be helpful. They are:

1. Matrimonial assets or family assets, and
2. Non-matrimonial assets or non-family assets

If all your assets are matrimonial assets, they will be shared with your spouse. The starting point is an equal division of assets, but the court can order a different outcome after considering the factors in Section 23 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973. These include the needs of dependent children, the duration of the marriage, and other relevant factors, such as housing requirements and earning capacity.

The court will only share an asset classified as a non-matrimonial asset if the sharing of the matrimonial assets does not meet one spouse’s reasonable needs.

Ownership and the classification of matrimonial assets and non-matrimonial assets

Some people believe that if an asset is jointly owned, it is considered a matrimonial asset, whereas if it is held in a spouse’s sole name, it is deemed a non-matrimonial asset. The law is more complicated than that.

The judgment in Standish confirms that matrimonial assets are ‘’the fruits of the marriage’’. However, the fruits do not need to be owned jointly to be classed as marital assets.

If a husband and wife cannot agree on whether an asset is a matrimonial asset or a non-matrimonial asset, the court can rule on the issue. This is what the Supreme Court did in the Standish case.

Family lawyers recommend the use of prenuptial agreements and postnuptial agreements if you want to reduce the risk of a dispute over whether an asset is a matrimonial asset or a non-matrimonial asset.

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How a non-matrimonial asset can convert into a matrimonial asset

The Standish case involved an argument that the husband’s non-matrimonial assets had converted into matrimonial assets when he transferred millions to his wife, to enable her to place the funds in a trust as a tax mitigation strategy for the benefit of the children.

The money was not placed in a trust, and the wife argued that the transfer of the funds from her husband’s sole name into her name converted the money from a non-matrimonial asset to a matrimonial asset. The Supreme Court disagreed.

While the Supreme Court said assets could change category by a concept referred to as ‘’Matrimonialisation’’, it had not occurred when Mr Standish transferred funds to his wife.

The concept of Matrimonialisation

If a non-matrimonial asset is matrimonialised, it becomes a family asset. That’s a crucial transformation as under the family court principles, a matrimonial asset is available for sharing between the husband and wife. The court will start on the premise that all matrimonial assets should be shared equally between the husband and wife, unless there is a reason to depart from this principle of equality.

If you have family wealth or are a financial advisor, accountant or tax advisor, you need to understand the Standish principles of matrimonialisation and how to avoid it.

In Standish, 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 Standish Matrimonialisation principles can be summarised as:

1. Matrimonialisation will not be applied narrowly or widely by the court.
2. When deciding if a non-matrimonial asset has become a matrimonial asset, what is important is how the husband and wife have dealt with the non-matrimonial assets and whether their course of dealing shows that, over time, the husband and wife have matrimonialised the non-matrimonial asset into a matrimonial asset.
3. If a husband or wife wants a share of a non-matrimonial asset, they need to be able to demonstrate that the other spouse intended to use or treat the assets as matrimonial assets despite their initial treatment as non-matrimonial assets.
4. The longer an asset is shared or treated as shared by spouses, the stronger the evidence that the asset has become a matrimonial asset.
5. Financial lawyers should advise on the proportionality of arguing whether an asset is a matrimonial asset or a non-matrimonial asset, or if a non-family asset has been matrimonialised.

The facts in the case of Mr and Mrs Standish

Every family law case is decided on its facts. As every family is different, it is hard to say that a family situation is an exact match to an earlier court decision.

In the case of Mr and Mrs Standish, Mr Standish kept his wealth separate from his wife, except for some accounts and a jointly owned family home. In 2017, he transferred £80 million to his wife as part of a tax mitigation strategy. Instead of transferring the assets into a trust, Mrs Standish separated from her husband and started divorce proceedings. She argued in the Supreme Court that the transfer of funds into her name converted her husband’s non-matrimonial asset into a matrimonial asset. The Supreme Court disagreed because it held that there was ‘no Matrimonialisation’ of the assets because the transfer was to save tax and was for the benefit of the children not the wife and therefore the money was not being treated by the husband and wife for any period of time as an asset that was shared between them.

Accordingly, the wife’s financial award was limited to £25 million, representing her share of the matrimonial assets.

Classifying assets as non-matrimonial assets and avoiding Matrimonialisation

You may not be as wealthy as Mr. or Mrs Standish, but it is essential to understand how family wealth and pre-marital assets can and should be protected.

Here are some examples of where family wealth or pre-marriage assets may require protection:

1. Money inherited from extended family.
2. Parents gifting substantial sums as part of their inheritance tax strategy.
3. Pre-marriage owned family business.
4. Second marriage and a desire to protect family wealth for the benefit of children from a first marriage.
5. Substantial civil compensation damages.
6. Pension fund to which pension contributions were made prior to the relationship.

The best way to ensure that there is no dispute over whether a particular asset or account is a matrimonial asset or non-matrimonial asset is to:

1. Sign a prenuptial agreement to categorise specific assets as non-matrimonial assets.
2. Review the prenuptial agreement if circumstances change.
3. Speak to a family law solicitor when wealth or financial planning to ensure that non-matrimonial assets are not being matrimonialised by wealth planning strategies.
4. Sign a postnuptial agreement if you come into unexpected wealth that you want treated as a non-matrimonial asset, such as an inheritance, the gift of money from a parent, the transfer of shares in a multi-generational family business or the release of capital or income from a trust fund.
5. If you have connections to more than one country, as you or your spouse is from overseas, speak to a family lawyer with international family law expertise who can advise on jurisdictional issues and the impact on your prenuptial agreement or postnuptial agreement.

Speak to Evolve Family Law

At Evolve Family Law, our specialist prenuptial agreement solicitors collaborate with accountants, tax advisors, wealth planners, and trustees to help families understand decisions such as Standish v Standish and how to best plan their financial futures.

For expert family law advice, call our team of specialist family lawyers or complete our online enquiry form.