As a ‘common law wife’ do I have any legal rights?

[Anon0mum]

my partner and I have been together 10 years and we have two children. My mother-in-law this past year has been battling with cancer (thankfully she seems to be making a good recovery)

Her recent battle has set off some anxieties for me. If either of our parents did pass ( I’m hoping it won’t be for a very very long time) and my partner/myself were in a situation where we aren’t able to make choices for ourselves, ( ie decisions about medical care)

Would choices fall on the respective partner, or would they fall on our sons? My biggest anxiety is that they will be having to make big decisions about their mum/ Dad,. It’s not something I want them to have to think about or question their decisions later.

Is this something where myself/ partner can take over and legally make this decisions for each other or Is it worth my partner and myself getting a document written up that gives each other permission legally to make those decisions, in the absence of our parents.

Thanks

Getting married doesn't give you power of attorney.

Only a power of attorney gets you that.

This. Father has dementia. Mother is his next of kin (married) but no power of attorney in place (we were in the process of getting these set up) so SW made all decisions regarding his care. Thankfully she was excellent.

Thank you all for replies

I have seen a few questions and I wanted to try and answer them;

Marriage- Marriage is something I would like but isn’t a deal breaker for me ( I can already see some of the comments coming now telling me to leave him 🤣) As I mentioned in the original post we have been together for 10 years and are not engaged yet, so I am going to assume he doesn’t want to get married and try to plan according.

Thank to those of you who also suggested a civil ceremony. I didn’t realise those weren’t just for same sex marriages ( the fact they need to be separated from a standard marriage still baffles me.

Property- We do not own property together but we do rent.

Finances- Ws have combined our finances and everything money wise from bills to savings is split down the middle.

A Will- A will is something that I have been looking into and I’m also looking at life insurance as well. Up until a few months ago it wasn’t something that I could afford but I am taking my time and making sure I do my research away from MN.

Idea of a common law wife- This was something that my mum mentioned to me. I’m going to guess that when she was with my dad, this was still a thing but I wasn’t 100% sure if it still was. I have now learnt that I was right and it doesn’t exist 🤣

The part that i am solely concerned about is medical decisions. I have 100% faith that my partner would give our children anything and everything in the situation I should pass away suddenly.

I would chose a civil partnership if I wanted something formal. It’s got less connotations that marriage, and more accurately reflects our situation. I was pleased that a couple pursued the right for non same-sex couples to have access to it.

Ditto. And for exactly the same reasons. A traditional marriage would not be right for us because it does not reflect the reality of our relationship.

❤️

Why can’t you ask your partner if he wants to get married? I don’t understand how you can be with someone for ten years and just assume they don’t want to get married because you’ve never talked about it?

funnily enough, I don’t think they would allow me to take him to a registry office to sign a legal document, he wasn’t willing🤷🏼‍♀️

It is something that we spoke about a few years ago and he did at that time say he wanted to get married.

However, because we have been together for 10 years, we get a lot of pressure from people around us asking “ If/ when are we going to get married?” so much to the point he just ignores people now. I don’t wanna ask and it seems as I’m putting extra pressure on him to do it.

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/family/living-together-marriage-and-civil-partnership/registering-a-civil-partnership/#:~:text=A%20civil%20partnership%20is%20a,give%20your%20relationship%20legal%20recognition.

common law wife was never a thing in English law as far as I know, I think it was just a thing people said in days gone by to deflect from the idea of 'living in sin'

you have 2 children together- is your DP on their birth certificates? if not his is something you need to get advice on, as they would not inherit if he died intestate, and if you were to split up he would not be obliged to support them unless you went to court

next of kin doesn't really have any legal standing either, any medical decisions if you were incapable would have to be in your best interests- they wouldn't just ask the 'next of kin' and do what they said- unless that person had PoA.

do either of you have a pension? because unless married you won't necessarily have that passed to you either

Yes he is on the birth certificates for both of our children. Yes we do both have pensions, is this something I would need to state in my will do you think?

When I was an IFA my old boss used to say the difference between a "common law wife" and a prostitute was that a prostitute had rights.

OK a bit extreme but he wanted to show women who were "common law wives" the vulnerability of their position.

I'm not saying you have to get married/enter into a civil partnership but if you don't you will need a LOT of paperwork (inc, being named as a beneficiary in your DP's will) to make your position secure.

Pensions aren't included in a Will - they are outside of your estate.

You need to update your expression of wishes with the pension company. As it stands, it would go to your children.

If you want your partner to be able to make decisions regarding your medical care in a situation where you no longer have capacity , you need to organise power of attorney for health and welfare. This would be the case even if you were married. For medics and health care staff, it makes no difference if he’s your long term partner or husband. He’s your next of kin if you’ve named him as such. End of.

Honestly OP I think you are inserting "wedding" here in place of "getting married".

Getting married would solve many of the issues you've mentioned. Why not have this (very sensible) discussion with him. You don't need to gave an "engagement" or particularly tell anyone. Just book a slot at the town hall and get it done.

Some pensions only pay out to legally married spouses.

This. I worked with a guy once who went and got married in his lunch hour then came back to work. It was seriously cool.

You can't bring this up to him? You have 2 children together, there's nothing that you shouldn't be able to talk about, especially something as important as this!

All of this

Since you have children, you both should have wills and life insurance, and you should have had some sort of discussion about guardianship of the children if you and your partner should be hit by a train, eOK.

Registering a civil partnership or simply going to the registry office and doing a civil marriage makes your relationship official and guarantees you financial and next of kin rights.

Sorry to hear of your mother in law's illness. Hope she's doing ok.

Not being married in a long term partnership is all well and good as long as life is all well and good. The second one is dying or dead, you have no rights. My neighbours had been together for about 30 years but never married. When she passed her partner, the father of one of the three adult kids, couldn't so much as make a claim to get her buried. There's spousal funds available but he couldn't apply for them. He also didn't get to make any decisions about her final days. Nothing. It was really sad. Her son from a previous marriage who had been NC for well over a decade got to waltz back in and do as he pleased.

@CurlyhairedAssassin
It's nice to have the option of a civil partnership. For many reasons, there are men and also women out there who recoil at the idea of 'marriage' even if there's no 'love, honour, obey, etc' as part of the ceremony that unites them in a civil sense. Marriage is a loaded term for some. A civil partnership can sound far less off-putting.

I have 100% faith that my partner would give our children anything and everything in the situation I should pass away suddenly.

So did my mum.

17 years later when my step dad died he left everything (including my mums half of their house which had passed to him) to his new partner and his nieces.

I pretty much got nothing of what was my mums.

Make a will.

That's true.
I wasn't thinking of final salary/career average schemes - but you are right, it does depends on the type of pension

So you have combined finances, joint liabilities and children together but will not protect each other’s future by going up the registry office and signing a piece of paper?

You don’t necessarily need a wedding in the traditional form but you do need a marriage or civil partnership to avoid a lot of unnecessary paperwork at death and also to protect yourself in life

Martin Lewis talked about the impact of dying with no wills and how this could be impacted by not being married on his show last week I am sure