How to save a family business from going under when divorce occurs: Laura Guillon

That reality is especially stark for those husbands and wives who choose to set up a business together as well as a home.

Recent figures show that roughly one-fifth of all marriages in England and Wales end in divorce before couples have reached the 10-year mark.

The data clearly illustrates that divorce is a very regular occurrence.

It also begs the question of how many spouses who become business partners take that into account.

As someone regularly required to consider the fate of a family business when dividing up a couple’s joint matrimonial assets on divorce, I am able to base my advice to entrepreneurs who are about to tie the knot on considerable experience.

Yet the kind of issues which crop up have been given fresh currency by an argument between two of the world’s best-known film stars, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

They are still embroiled in a row about one of their notable joint assets - a wine-producing estate in Provence - seven years after they separated.

They bought Chateau Miraval jointly in 2014 but, when their marriage fell apart, Ms Jolie sold her half-share in the estate to a Russian oligarch who also owns the Stolichnaya vodka brand.

Mr Pitt has objected to the disposal, maintaining that there was an agreement by which neither he nor Ms Jolie would sell their respective interests without the other’s consent.

Whilst few households have the riches or renown of ‘Brangelina’, many business spouses can draw lessons from their court dispute, particularly if they find it difficult to separate what happens at home and work.

In such divorces, the question of what to do with any joint commercial interests naturally arises.

Some succeed in continuing to operate firms without friction but those examples are few and far between.

More usual is a decision either to sell a company outright or for one party to buy the other out.

Although unfortunate, it is certainly advisable when spouses are so unable to agree on the division of joint marital assets that they end up asking a court to intervene and decide on the fairest solution.

Negative tension is not good for a business or the employees within it and can create a toxic atmosphere with staff almost being encouraged to take sides.

If consensus seems elusive, it is important for the spouses concerned to seek independent advice from a lawyer or accountant, for instance. That becomes critical if their principal joint asset is their business.

Adopting the same hard-headed approach to divorce as directors might do in business doesn’t work and doesn’t help.

Just because a marriage is ending, shouldn’t ever mean that operation of a viable enterprise has to as well.

More and more entrepreneurs in fact find that drawing up a pre or post-nup in much the same way that they might compose a business strategy can offer a degree of certainty and clarity, long before domestic and commercial reality bites.

Laura Guillon is Head of Hall Brown’s Leeds office