The Decibel - Why more young people are signing prenups

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

‘Til death do us part – that’s the promise couples make to each other when they tie the knot. But what happens in the event of a divorce? Disentangling a marriage can carry a big financial burden if the division of property, pets and assets are in the mix. Once derided as unromantic, the pre-nuptial agreement is now gaining popularity among young Canadians planning to get married.Mariya Postelnyak, consumer affairs reporter for The Globe, talks about how pre-nups legally work in Canada, what’s included and what isn’t in agreements, and why more couples are navigating the tricky conversation before marriage.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hi, it's Irene Gallia, business reporter at the globe and guest host for The Decibel. Cheryl will be back tomorrow. Fall wedding season is in full swing in Canada. And ahead of the idu's, more Canadians are thinking about what happens years after the big day, if they don't. Recent polling by TD Bank shows that over half of Gen Z Canadians want their partners. to sign a pre-up, compared to less than a third of the general population. And with that new interest comes new additions, from lengthy agreements over the family dog,

to financial consequences for cheating. But not everything couples are trying to include is actually legal. Today, we're speaking with Maria Postalak, the Globe's Consumer Affairs Reporter. She'll explain what we know about the rising interest in pre-up how these agreements work in Canada and what couples can and can't include when they're drawing them up. I'm Irene Gallia, guest hosting The Decibel from the Globe and Mail. Hi, Maria. Thanks for joining us.

Thanks so much for having me, Irene. Before we get into what's shifting in how these agreements are being approached, can you explain exactly what a pre-up is? A pre-nup or pre-nuptial agreement is essentially, this document that spells out what each person in a relationship is entitled to and responsible for under provincial law in the case that the relationship ends. We can actually trace back some elements of the modern pre-dub as far back as ancient Egypt when marital contracts would have certain clauses designed to make sure wives would be provided for in the case that a marriage

ended. These days, most provincial courts in Canada don't technically use the term pre-up. We usually see either a marriage agreement for couples getting married or a cohabitation agreement for common law couples, meaning couples living together for three years in places like Ontario or who have a child together and some sort of long-term relationship. Okay, so there are two kinds of agreements, cohabitation agreement and marriage agreement. But Maria, you looked into marriage agreements. So let's dig into those. What happens if you get married without a pre-up? When a marriage breaks down without a pre-up, what usually kicks in across provinces like Ontario, for example, is this equalization of net family property, which in theory means that

property that you kind of accumulate together over the time of the marriage is split equally in any growth as well. There are some exceptions for things like inheritances, but in practice, what that actually means is each spouse gets calculated this net family property, which is the value of assets that they acquired during the marriage, and then any increase in value of those assets brought into the marriage. One person will always have a higher net family property than the other. So what you do is you subtract the lower net family property from the higher one and you divide the difference. So this will be actually the payment that the spouse with the higher net family property will pay to the spouse with the lower number. In order for this

to happen, all the assets actually have to be appraised. So like a watch or a car would need to have an appraisal of some sort. It's also important to note that the same default rules don't always apply to unmarried couples in every province. So for example, when a common law partnership, breaks down in Ontario, you're not automatically entitled to one half the value of your partner's assets and things like homes, property, to which you're not on the title of. Instead, each common loss spouse keeps the property that they own at the end of the relationship. And to make things more confusing, this is the opposite in BC. So things differ by province. Okay, sounds pretty complicated. How does a pre-in-up change things? It essentially outlines exactly how, how you

you want assets and things like homes, cars, wine collections, family gifts, and even debt to be divided, instead of just leaving that up to the courts and like the super expensive litigation, right? So in both cases, these agreements typically list out and assign, you know, how something like a house or future gifts, inheritances will be divided. The classic kind of example is, you know, the husband has a house. The wife is moving in. They don't want to have the regular rules of, you know, family law applying to that house where if they separate the person that doesn't own the house would automatically be entitled to 50% of the value, so they make clear stipulations around who is entitled to what. So you're talking

about gifts. Does that include inheritances? Yeah, so inheritances are another thing that can be sort of safeguarded in a pre-up. On the face of it, inheritances are excluded assets, but the increase in value of those assets could be considered family property, especially if it's kind of commingled with your family assets overall or the family money, right? So lawyers I spoke with, they often design a clause that will protect the inheritance or the value of that asset and any increase in value. If, for example, you know, you take that inheritance and, let's say you buy a house or you put it into an RSP, they make sure that it accounts for any ways that that inheritance, that asset can change its form and make sure that it's still kind of excluded

and that, you know, that's your asset, that's your money. So if you don't have a pre-nup, when you get divorced, you divide all of the assets by appraising everything. And if you do have a pre-nup, then you establish exactly what each person gets if that divorce were ever to take place. Exactly. You can outline everything clearly and make sure that everyone understands what they're entitled to and what they're responsible for. Recent polling shows that young Canadians are especially interested in signing a pre-up. Do we know why these agreements are becoming more popular with Gen Z? There may be a few reasons at play.

For starters, people are getting married nowadays when they're slightly older. I think the most recent data shows that the average age for women was 29 and for men it was 31, which is about three years older than in 2005. And as you know, a lot can happen in your career in three years, right? So at 30, they may have a bit more stability in their career, more savings, more assets to protect. At the same time, what one lawyer told me is that in places like Toronto, for example, the price of real estate is so high that people can't afford to buy a house without getting money from the bank of mom and dad. And when parents give you money towards the matrimonial home and the marriage breaks down the road, you'll see arguments coming up.

So a pre-nup might also help establish ground rules around who contributed what and who's entitled to what when the marriage falls apart. I would also note that there's this massive intergenerational wealth transfer happening right now with about 85 trillion U.S. dollars expected to pass to millennials and Gen Z. Air. by 2045. So it makes sense that we want to kind of protect or safeguard any sort of money that will come down the pipe later on. Is anything else driving this? I mean, we can't deny that pop culture has played a role, right? So we've grown up watching these tech billionaires rise to the top and then split up with their significant other, often without a pre-up. Like, for example, the famous case of Jeff Bezos and McKenzie Scott. We're watching these high-prisoners. profile, messy divorces, and we're learning from them, as well as anything that might happen in our

own homes, right, with our parents. So how are younger Canadians approaching these agreements? Are they including the same assets and investments? How is that changing? Lawyers I spoke with are increasingly seeing detailed provisions for family dogs and cats. Like I mean really detailed, feeding schedules, vet visits, walking routines, diets, pages and pages about the pet, as one lawyer told me. They're asking about also cheating clauses, like, you cheat on me, I get paid this much money, or if we break up, you pay my phone bill for a year. Some ask for stipulations around, you know, who does what chores, or how often someone goes to church, or how much someone even exercises, so like clauses around weight gain. One lawyer even told me he's gotten questions

about whether they can put rules around how far a spouse can travel without their permission. So pretty concerning stuff too. Wow. Are a lot of these things legal? Are they allowed in preempts? Generally, no. If it's against public policy, it won't be upheld in court. And a good lawyer will always advise against it.

We'll be right back. So, Maria, along with this rising interest in pre-ups, we're also seeing couples bringing new ideas and rules to these agreements. Before we dig into some of those, could you explain what generally is and isn't allowed in a pre-up in Canada? Generally, you want to focus on property, assets, investments, debt, and things like shares of a family business or inheritances of those come into play. For example, a lawyer can place clauses in an agreement specifying that both parties may receive inheritances, potentially substantial inheritances from their families, and protect any increase in the value of that asset from being divided. You won't be able to include anything about children or their parenting, which was actually

quite surprising to me, but the reason makes sense. It's because courts would want to make sure that their arrangement is in the best interest of the child at the time of divorce. And you can't always predict the circumstances. What if, you know, mom or dad became an alcoholic and isn't in a position to care for the child? You wouldn't necessarily want to decide on a custody agreement at the time. Any kind of behavioral rules, like moral value statements that you need to fulfill, you know, your household chores or go to church this many times a week, those things are against public policies. So they won't hold up in court. And does anything nullify a pre-up? There are certain things that can happen that will make it less

likely that your pre-up will be upheld in court. So, for example, if there is improper financial disclosure or if one partner hides their assets, very likely the pre-up will not be upheld in court. Another thing that can happen is if you actually sign the pre-up very close to the date of the wedding, it can be argued that it was signed under jurors. So it might not be upheld in that instance as well. If a pre-up is deemed, you know, significantly unfair at the time of the divorce, let's say you signed it 20 years ago. Now things have significantly changed. Courts can also override certain elements in that case. So you also mentioned that references to pet ownership are being included in more preempts. Can you explain what

that is looking like and what lawyers have said about the validity of rules around pets? For sure. So lawyers are definitely seeing very detailed provisions for their fur babies like visitation schedules, as I mentioned, diet, grooming. It's still challenging to uphold a lot of these things in courts across Canada, like Ontario specifically. Although one of our colleagues mentioned some of this can be worked out in mediation. In BC, however, courts now see animals, pets as companion animals, and they're actually looking at them more similarly to family members rather than just property. And they might take into account things like environment, care, connection to children into account when determining the living arrangements

and custody of a pet. Maria, are there other kinds of property or expectations that lawyers in court are still figuring out how to litigate when it comes to preempts? Yeah, one really interesting one that I looked at was intellectual property. So like a couple's Instagram account or a travel blog, I'm sure you've seen some of those online, those can actually also be relevant assets to account for pre-ups. There haven't been a lot of cases involving these before the courts across Canada. One lawyer told me she believes these cases would likely hold up in court because they pertain to property. There was this famous instance in the U.S. where a couple, Kat and Mike Stickler,

they made headlines after their lawyers struggled to kind of divide their $4 million social media empire, Mike and Kat. Eventually, it was decided that Kat, who had contributed more towards the growth of their TikTok, she got the TikTok account, and he got the YouTube account. And I think a few months later, like the TikTok had grown significantly, and the YouTube is now defunct.

So that was an interesting case. Okay, so we may be hearing more about how stuff like pet ownership and IP is handled soon. But Maria, when it comes to these instances where couples are requesting to include restrictions or rules around behavior, what are the lawyers that you've spoken to making of the increase in requests like those? I think there's a few things at play here. Lawyers are just seeing a lot more anxiety around. affordability and parental money, gifts, and inheritances being involved. Because of these affordability challenges, a lot of young people are just, they're often

working longer. They arguably have less work-life balance than some previous generations to accumulate that same amount of wealth. So they may be becoming more protective around their assets. I think social media and transparency around these conversations also has a role to play. I mean, if you search pre-ups on TikTok, you'll see thousands upon thousands of videos about people discussing why they got a pre-up and why you should do it as well. Also, I will say dating is hard these days. There was a famous University of Arizona study from a few years ago that suggested couples who met online often found less stability in their marriages. And, I mean, dating apps can also make cheating easier in a way that was just never possible before.

You'd often need to leave the house to cheat. Now you can sort of accomplish that under the same roof talking to someone on a dating app. So it's not really surprising that young people are feeling anxiety around relationships and just wanting to be more protective of what's theirs. Yeah, it seems like we're talking about this really deep anxiety about protecting our wealth, especially at a time when the cost of living is just so high. I feel like there's this impression that pre-ups are really for people with a lot of assets. Is there a sense that a divorce without a pre-up results in a more equal split and that if you

aren't as wealthy, then actually a pre-up may not be the best for you in terms of a court dividing up assets? I will say that when you get married, there's a lot of uncertainty. about what can happen in the future. You might be in one position. When you get into the marriage, you might be in a totally different, in totally different circumstances at the time of your separation. So a pre-up is just there to eliminate the headaches. It's there to set out ground rules and protect you against this expensive litigation that can happen down the line. So it's not just important for, you know, the ultra-wealthy. They're there for any couple who has assets that

they would like to protect or keep separate from their family property, or if the couple would like to kind of divide their assets and debts differently from what the law prescries. So, Maria, the study found that half of Gen Z wants a pre-up, but that means that the other half doesn't. This is obviously a very emotional issue. And traditionally, there's been a bit of a stigma around pre-ups. After looking into this, do you think that that's changing? I will say that although there is less stigma because we're having conversations like this, people still have very, very strong feelings about pre-ups. I will say every time the story has been mentioned in the newsroom, you'll see all the chairs turn around. We've had so many

heated discussions about this around the office. So that sort of speaks to that in itself. And it's understandable. I mean, people work so much longer and often harder for what they have and the wealth that they've built. And it's logical for them to want to protect what they've built for themselves. Why do you think it's so emotional for people? I guess, I mean, some will argue that, you know, it takes the romance out of a marriage or relationship, but kind of you're almost thinking about your separation. You're thinking about your divorce, right? It forces you to think about those scenarios that you don't want to think about when you're going into a marriage. But at the end of the day, a marriage is a business agreement to some extent. And it's

important to protect yourself, especially given all of the challenges that we're facing around affordability, around employment. It just makes sense. It begs the question. If our minds are changing around preempts, if they're also changing about how we think about marriages and that commitment in our life. Yeah, absolutely. I think we're approaching. it a little bit more pragmatically. We're maybe divorcing our emotions from it more because there is this growing awareness, more transparency about this. We know what can go wrong. We see it from, you know, Silicon Valley divorces to Hollywood divorces. We know what can go wrong. So I think

we're approaching this more strategically. And there's a lot of sense to that as well. Maria, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks so much for having me. That was Maria Postalniak, the Globe's Consumer Affairs Reporter. That's it for today. I'm Irene Gallia. The Decibel is hosted by Cheryl Sutherland. Our producers are Madeline White, Mikhailstein, and Ali Graham.

David Crosby edits the show. Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Angela Pachenza is our executive editor. Thank you for listening.