Unexpected prenup request from Partner.

You both need to get independent legal advice.

For one thing, courts can (and very often do) set these sorts of agreements aside or vary them significantly, especially if they cause undue hardship to a party. Other things that can set aside agreements include things like a change in circumstances (especially regarding children e.g. living arrangements - a court might use a change to toss the whole document), if it's contrary to the interests of a child, there's been any undue influence over a partner and so on. It's a long list, and so these agreements can sometimes create a lot of angst and uncertainty down the track (Grant Hackett is an example of a person who found this out the hard way; his BFA was basically useless which, I imagine, caused him a lot of additional stress and expense).

Getting your partner's family friend to draw up the agreement is a terrible, terrible idea. The agreement should not be drawn up by anyone likely to be biased towards the interests of one party. BFAs are an expensive exercise requiring the attention of family lawyers with proven experience in this area. If you don't do this, and you don't fork out good lawyers, you're likely to end up with a contract with all sorts of problems - one that may well end up being tossed by the court, an outcome that is by no means uncommon. Keep in mind too these agreements are relatively new to the Australian landscape, so are somewhat untested legally speaking.

Often, one spouse contracts to far less support than she/he would be entitled to under the Family Law Act, which in itself has the potential to render the whole agreement unenforceable (and arguably renders prenups pointless but that's another discussion). Yes your partner wants to protect himself, but you need to protect yourself too. Courts use the Family Law Act to obtain the most reasonable outcome for both parties (it's not a 50/50 split) taking into account all sorts of things, super, whether a partner has or hasn't worked for a substantial period, what each party brings in to the relationship, how to approach an inheritance and so on.

The Family Law Act is pretty comprehensive, and before agreeing to a binding financial agreement you need to think about whether you'd be better protected under the Act - it's likely you would be, so you may be signing away your rights to placate your partner.

I'm not saying a prenup is a bad way to go, but quality advice is absolutely essential, and it's important to b aware of the pitfalls.

/r/AusFinance Thread