One of the most common questions about prenups is whether you legally need a solicitor. The short answer: no, you do not have to use one – but taking independent legal advice is strongly recommended, and it helps enormously to understand the difference between drafting the agreement and getting advice on it. Once you see them as two separate jobs, the cost-effective route becomes obvious.
Drafting vs advice: two separate jobs
Two distinct tasks often get rolled together in people’s minds. Drafting is preparing the agreement itself – the document that sets out your terms. This can be done by a solicitor from scratch, or through a professionally structured online service. Advice is a solicitor explaining the finished agreement to you personally, confirming you understand it and that it is in your interests. You can mix and match: many couples draft affordably online, then each take independent advice on the finished document. Separating the two is the key to keeping costs sensible without cutting the corner that matters.
Why advice is worth taking
Independent legal advice – each partner with their own solicitor – is one of the things that most helps a court give a prenup weight. It shows both partners understood what they were signing and were not pressured into it. It is also one of the safeguards the proposed qualifying nuptial agreements reforms would make compulsory. In other words, advice is not red tape – it is one of the load-bearing pillars that makes an agreement robust (see independent legal advice for a prenup).
Do both partners need their own solicitor?
Ideally, yes. The whole point of the advice is that it is independent, so the same solicitor cannot advise both of you – that would be a conflict of interest. Each partner instructing their own adviser is what makes the advice count. It does not have to be expensive: because the drafting is already done, each solicitor is simply reviewing and advising, not building the agreement from scratch (see do both partners need their own lawyer?).
So when do you really need a solicitor to draft?
You should seriously consider full solicitor drafting where finances are genuinely complex – trusts, intricate business structures, overseas assets – or where the terms need real negotiation between the two of you. For clearer situations, a professionally structured online draft plus independent advice is usually enough, and far cheaper (see how much a prenup costs and online prenup vs solicitor).
The affordable middle ground
For most couples the best value is not "cheap and risky" or "expensive and thorough", but the middle path: draft the agreement online for a fixed fee, then each pay a solicitor only to review it and advise. This keeps the total well below a traditional two-solicitor process while still ticking the independent-advice box. If you go this route, our guide to choosing a prenup solicitor shows what to look for and what to ask.
What a solicitor’s advice actually gives you
- Confirmation you understand the agreement and its implications.
- A check that the terms are fair and meet your needs (see when is a prenup unfair?).
- An advice letter – useful written evidence that advice was given.
- Reassurance that nothing important has been missed for your circumstances.
What happens during an advice appointment
Knowing what to expect takes the mystery out of it. Your solicitor will read the agreement and your disclosure schedule, then talk you through the terms in plain language: what you would be keeping as separate property, what happens to jointly built assets, how any maintenance is treated, and what the agreement would and would not do if the marriage ended. They will check you understand the effect of signing, ask whether you feel under any pressure, and flag anything that looks unfair or vulnerable to challenge. At the end they usually provide a short advice letter or certificate confirming advice was given. The appointment is often an hour or so, and because the agreement is already drafted, the solicitor is reviewing rather than building from scratch (see independent legal advice for a prenup).
A worked example of the middle-ground route
For example, imagine one partner owns a flat bought before the relationship and has a workplace pension, while the other has savings and some student debt – a common, reasonably straightforward picture. Rather than instruct two firms to draft and negotiate from a blank page, the couple complete their disclosure, draft the agreement online for a fixed fee, and then each pay their own solicitor a fixed fee to review it and advise. Each solicitor confirms in writing that their client understood the terms. The couple sign as a deed six weeks before the wedding and store everything together. They end up with the independent advice that matters most, at a fraction of the cost of full bespoke drafting (see how much a prenup costs and a cheap prenup done properly).
What advice cannot fix
It is worth being realistic about the limits. A solicitor advising on a prenup cannot make an unfair agreement fair, cannot fill gaps left by poor disclosure, and cannot promise a court will uphold it – no one can, because no prenup is automatically binding in England & Wales. What advice does is confirm you understood what you signed and give you the chance to fix problems before signing. If the terms would leave one partner in real difficulty, or if a significant asset was left off the disclosure, good advice will surface that so you can put it right – not paper over it (see when is a prenup unfair? and can a prenup be overturned?).
How to get the most from a limited advice budget
If cost is a real concern, the answer is not to skip advice but to make it efficient. Do the preparation before you sit down with your solicitor: complete a thorough disclosure, agree fair terms with your partner, and have the drafted agreement ready. The more organised you are, the less chargeable time the solicitor spends untangling your situation and the more the appointment focuses on advising you. Ask up front for a fixed fee to review and advise on an existing agreement, and confirm what the advice letter will cover. Avoid open-ended hourly arrangements for what is usually a contained piece of work. And book early: a rushed appointment squeezed in days before the wedding is both more stressful and, because of the timing, less protective. Handled this way, independent advice for each partner typically costs a fraction of full bespoke drafting while still delivering the safeguard that gives your agreement weight (see solicitor prenup costs and are prenups worth it?).
Do you need a solicitor for a prenup? The bottom line
So, do you need a solicitor for a prenup? Not to make one valid – but independent legal advice for each partner is strongly recommended, because it is one of the things that most helps an agreement hold up, and it is a condition the proposed reforms would require. The affordable middle ground is to draft the agreement for a fixed fee and then pay a solicitor only to advise on the finished document. Whichever route you take, our step-by-step guide shows where advice fits into the process.
What the cases say about doing it without a solicitor
The clearest authority that advice is not compulsory is Versteegh v Versteegh, decided by the Court of Appeal in 2018. The wife had signed a standard Swedish prenup the day before the wedding with no legal advice and no financial disclosure, and the court upheld it, because the judge had found she understood exactly what it meant and had lived by it throughout the marriage. The Court of Appeal called advice desirable but not essential where understanding was clear, and said it would be paternalistic to insist on it. So a prenup made without a solicitor can be given full weight.
The reason advice is still recommended is what happens when understanding is disputed. Under Radmacher v Granatino the court asks whether each party entered the agreement with a full appreciation of its implications, and in most contested cases the partner resisting the agreement says they did not. Without an advice letter, the partner relying on the agreement has to prove understanding from the surrounding facts, as Ms Versteegh's husband had to; with one, the question is usually answered before it is asked. The Law Commission's 2014 report went further and treated independent legal advice as a requirement of a qualifying nuptial agreement, and its financial remedies scoping report of December 2024 kept prenups on the list of areas Parliament could legislate on. An agreement made now to that standard will not need remaking if the law changes. The limits are unaffected either way: section 34 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 makes void any term that ousts the court, and section 25 keeps the duty to meet needs.
Do you need a solicitor for a prenup? FAQs
Is a prenup valid without a solicitor?
It can be, but advice makes it far more robust (see are prenups legally binding?).
Do both partners need their own solicitor?
Ideally yes – separate advice is what makes it independent (see do both partners need their own lawyer?).
How much does prenup legal advice cost?
Often a fixed fee per partner, far less than full bespoke drafting (see solicitor prenup costs).
Can you write your own prenup without any lawyer?
You can, but a DIY prenup often misses the disclosure, fair terms and correct signing that make an agreement hold up.
Will a solicitor draft a prenup from an online document?
Yes – many will review and advise on an agreement you have already drafted, which is cheaper than starting from scratch (see how to choose a solicitor).
Does a prenup need to be notarised instead?
No – notarisation is not required in England & Wales; correct signing as a deed is what counts (see does a prenup need notarising?).
Would the proposed reforms require a solicitor?
The Law Commission’s 2014 proposal for "qualifying nuptial agreements" would make independent legal advice a condition of an automatically binding agreement, but that reform is not yet law. For now advice is strongly recommended rather than legally required (see qualifying nuptial agreements).
When is full solicitor drafting genuinely worth it?
Where finances are complex – trusts, a substantial business, overseas assets – or where the terms need real negotiation, bespoke drafting can be worth the extra cost (see online prenup vs solicitor).
Can a solicitor refuse to advise on our prenup?
A solicitor may decline if they think the terms are so one-sided they cannot responsibly advise a client to sign. If that happens, treat it as a useful warning to revisit fairness rather than to shop around (see how to make a prenup fair).
Create your prenuptial agreement online
UK Prenup lets couples in England & Wales create a clear, fair prenuptial agreement online from £199, with your document generated instantly as a PDF. See how it works or get started.
UK Prenup is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice. A prenuptial agreement in England & Wales is not automatically binding, and both partners should take independent legal advice before signing.