Coercive control and cohabitees’ rights to property - Maria Wheeler and Labour

I have chosen not to marry, have been with dp over 10 years and I own the house we live in, I want my dc to inherit it. Stop treating us as idiots, yes make the benefits / pitfalls of marriage more widely known but don't force people into this, if we wanted to marry we would but we both have had poor marriages and children from them who we want to inherit our individual possessions

We have a fairly similar rule in NZ, if you live with someone for two years in a relationship you can then have a claim on the property. If everyone knows what the rules are they can protect themselves.

I’ve had two BFs try and move in with me. Not right emotionally in those instances, but no3 would be in with even less of a chance.

Some people can be very keen on free housing. And the rest.

The new law would as now have to cost or value unpaid contributions eg childcare and, equally, introduce an acknowledgment of no contributions, before it handed over half the property.

Good point. How will they protect against cuckooing?

The thing is that in the case of prenups, people are choosing to marry. They are choosing to enter in to a legal contract. A prenup is an attempt to get around or control that legal contract in various ways. Fair enough for the courts to be sniffy about that.

This proposal put people in a situation where without choosing to do so (in fact, they may be actively choosing not to enter into a marriage contract) they get lumbered with the consequences of a contract anyway. And there can be no way to make it clear that, even by living with someone, they are not entering into any kind of legal property sharing arrangement. A court can just decide that it’s unfair and hand half the value of their house to their partner.

That’s atrocious. And utterly dystopian. There was no legal contract for the court to have jurisdiction over. The court should stay out of it.

Marriage exists. Even civil partnership exists. If people want to create legal financial ties to each other, they can choose to do so.

Creating a situation where having someone live in your house - that you pay for and own - allows them to gradually accumulate ownership of it by default is awful.

In The Times. Seems like they have looked at NZ but...like self-ID...you have to question that. Have they shut out those whose experiences do not support this change? Getting a pasting in the comments anyway.

Labour’s common-law marriage pledge to give millions of cohabiting couples property rights

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a1dcc480-67ad-11ee-a4e7-0fb10af55688?shareToken=766c428ab695623a3542c4e60d32fd9e

"[Thornberry] said it was “time we reviewed this issue in England and Wales, just as it has been in New Zealand, Scotland and Ireland”. She added: “No woman should be forced to get married or stay in an unhappy relationship just to avoid being put out on the street.”

This is a policy that was mooted by Labour back in the days of the New Labour government. There was no attempt to actually introduce it though, I assume because the problems of implementing it were recognised at the time. It really did seem like complete state overreach which could have lots of unwanted and unintended consequences. My fear is that the Labour government we're likely to get next year either won't see or won't care.

This is one of the problems I have with Labour. When they campaign to save a local library, or to help families with children, or build more social housing, I really want to vote for them.
Then they say 'oh, btw, we also intend to introduce a load of laws to regulate your personal life and relationships, there'll be unintended consequences and losers as well as winners but let's all hold hands and hope for the best.'
Although, the Tories seem to have given up on being the party of staying out of your private life too, so not sure who I'd vote for instead.

This is a terrifying comment tagged on the end. There is no guaranteed opt out - which means that actually there is no safe way to cohabit and ensure your own financial well-being.

Merely want to say here, that this is the same situations with pre-nuptial agreements entered into before marriage. There is no guaranteed opt out there either - and basically for the the same reason, where it would be leave a situation that would be 'manifestly unfair'. The Courts have said (in the context of Pre-nupts) that it would not allow the jurisdiction of the court to be ousted.

Terrible idea for all the reasons above.

Not one of us is asking for this particular potential law to be anything but sex blind. We just dont want it as law.

I do wish all political parties would do a tiny bit of critical thinking around potential legal issues, not just write something on a napkin and then tout it as a great idea, will serve women well, look how popular this will be with the wims, when it patently wont work in so many cases. And it's not as if those could be legislated for.

This. I think it's not good for dear children.

This is a terrifying comment tagged on the end. There is no guaranteed opt out - which means that actually there is no safe way to cohabit and ensure your own financial well-being.

The courts may well interpret ‘fair’ and ‘unfair’ in ways that do not match reality. They currently do so in divorce - and in unpredictable ways because it depends so much on the individual making the decision.

This stuff is dystopia dressed up as social justice and protection of the vulnerable.

I’m not sure it is urgent.

It’s more likely that this is one of those flashy type announcements that looks like it’s all about caring and social justice and - if you don’t really look at it closely - might sound vaguely reasonable to people who have no direct experience.

Political parties are very keen on this crap - especially in the float stuff and see what doesn’t sink period of the election cycle.

The UK law commision has looked into the subject and made its recommendations. The link below is for their summary. It is a difficult issue and there will always be pros and cons - winners and losers. The Govenment decided shelve it. I don't think there has been a change to this area of law.

https://s3-eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/lawcom-prod-storage-11jsxou24uy7q/uploads/2015/03/lc307_Cohabitation_summary.pdf

Also, how is this a pressing issue? It feels like it's being sneaked in. Where's it come from, what's the evidence and what's the urgency?

I'd far rather they did something about social care for elderly people, or disability payments.

There's something really off about this idea

Seriously, back of the fag packet policy announcements that fail to understand the actual problems and the wider implications are harmful.

This isn’t a ‘oh poor politicians; they just can’t win’ scenario.

Issues around women trapped in abusive relationships will never be solved by sneaking a de facto form of marriage on them. In fact, this issues can be made much, much worse by that.

So do nothing? Can’t win, can they?

Oh, I know that anything other than a sex-blind approach is not going to happen. This proposal is a really bad idea and I hope Labour scrap it. A good example of how clichés about ‘vulnerable women’ can be used to empower bad actors.

Not sure what article 6 of Human Rights Act (right to a fair trial) has to do with this?

Legislation in this area should always be based on fairness. Those hoping for something other than a 'sex-blind' approach (@TheirEminence for example) will have a long wait on their hands. No government needs to be encouraged to snip away at Article 6 of the Human Rights Act.

Also, would this "legalise" bigamy?

What happens, for instance, if someone is legally married to person A, but living with person B? Or just plain living with both persons A and B.

That's horrendous @TheClitterati - i didn't know that at all. Thanks for the update.

De facto/common law relationship are very common in nz.

Late 90's (ish?) they changed the law so after 3 years living together everything became jointly owned. Even if no children were involved. Or property was owned prior to the relationship. It was meant to protect women.

Except now women who own property are losing their homes after relatively short relationships if they split up.

Or as is the case with women I know the financial entanglement means they are staying put in coercive relationships as they would lose half or have to buy him out to stay put.