to think that people will be too wary to move in together?

[tuggy]

Just read this article and it saying that there is the possibility (not set in stone blah blah) that they will be giving co-habiting couples the same rights on break up, as married couples. Now I'm sure that in plenty of cases, there are people who have lived together for 20 years, without getting married, broken up, and been royally screwed when they had no more rights that the neighbour, to a fair settlement. Doubtless all those people will leap on to tell me their story and proclaim IABU.

However what I'm thinking is that in GENERAL (cue flaming) you date someone, you like them, after a year you think yeah I could live with them, give it a shot living together, it works out, you maybe get married voilà. But if it doesn't work out, you can walk away because phew you didn't actually tie the know.

If this new law comes in then suddenly when you move in together you are making the decision at THAT stage that this person may be eligible for half your worldly goods. When I moved in with my DP (hopefully one day DH) I was in love, I was hopeful for the future, but I don't think I'd have wanted to necessarily commit to him definitely having rights over my flat/business/savings. If I'd felt that certain I'd have married him, not moved in with him.

In my mind marriage, and just deciding to give it a shot and move in are two very very different steps and should be treated as such.

(dons hard hat from people who have co-habited for years and are in the anti-marriage brigade)

Discuss ;)

The difference between this and marriage is that the couple make a conscious and deliberate choice to enter into marriage.
It is clear cut and there is a definite date that a marriage starts.
So, yes, I accept that the prostitution argument can apply to the married but at least there is a choice and a definite start date!
The whole 'what about the children argument' is a red herring: children are protected regardless of marital status of parents.

It's all about freedom of choice-marry and face consequences of such if separate; don't marry and face consequences of such if you just cohabit. Either way, people should be adult enough to take consequences of action/s.

Marantha - what if a rich male gets with a women. he does not want her working as it relects bad on his image (this is comon). instead she is to clean and cook and in return he will keep her in the custom she is expecting.

Would you say she has rights then? Not if it was for a year but say 10 years, 20 years?

I would say in that case it would be sensible/appropriate for them to get married, that's just the kind of relationship marriage is 'designed' for! More so if they had children.

Marriage offers the protection people look for when getting married but what people do not realise is that you are already protected to an exstent.

No, mrspoc, if the woman chooses to give up work, she should have no rights other than what is agreed explicitly between the couple.
I'm afraid cooking and cleaning in return for free keep seems a fair exchange to me.

Are women children or something? (smile)

I think if you want the rights and protection that being married gives you, then get married.

If you want to get married you can get married, as it stands you have the choice to get the protection marriage offers or not to. It isn't as if it has to be expensive to marry or religious.

If this law comes in to place can you opt out of it? Can you choose to cohabit and not have rights. I can't see the point of changing the law personally. You have to have some kind of screening system against cock lodgers
after all, cohabiting without rights seems fine to me.

I lived with my DH for about 7 years before we tied the knot, and I was happy that way.

YABU and hang on a minute.

Having looked at the article and a couple of other pieces in the press, it seems that the definition of co-habiting is going to be somewhat narrower than the posts on here might have you believe.

Firstly, it will almost certainly apply only to properties which have been jointly purchased (look at the cases the article references).

Secondly, it will require an 'intimate' relationship between the owners of the property.

Does anyone really think that if a couple buy a property together (which is a pretty bloody big commitment in my book), then one of those can be screwed over because they're not married?

It might be difficult to prove or disprove intimate relationship if if one of you is lying your arse off. If someone has a one night stand is that 'intimate'? The whole thing is too vague and relies too heavily on people who have much to lose or gain telling the absolute truth.

I think that if you have DC from a previous relationship and then live with someone who is not the other parent of your DC, it could leave them in a vulnerable position if the new partner makes a claim on the house/money etc. Also if the father/mother of your DC has given you the house because you are raising the kids and it's their home, I can imagine them being mightily pissed if a new partner then tries to claim a share of it.

To those living in a partner house, but contributing to bills/food etc, how many will scrupulously keep receipts for years to prove that they have contributed.

I think that unmarried SAHP leave themselves in a very vulnerable position. Not saying that marriage is for everyone, but they really ought to get a legal agreement drawn up to protect their interests.

Personally, if I was rich, I don't think I'd want to chance living with someone, esp if I had DC already. I'd want to protect my money for them.

YANBU. At the moment you can choose to get married (with all the protection/responsibility that confers) or you can choose not. My immediate thought on hearing this proposal was that it effectively removes that choice. For every person left destitute by the breakdown of a cohabiting relationship there will be another taken to the cleaners by an undeserving partner under the proposed system. I'm not especially pro or anti marriage, but I do think that if one partner wants to get married and the other refuses you have to ask yourself why. At least under the present system you know where you stand in the event of a break up and you can choose to stay in or get out of the relationship. I don't think legislation should be based on the fact that some people are too stupid to realise that living together and being married aren't the same thing.

cestlavie, I don't quite understand what you mean here- if a couple buy a house jointly and have documentation to prove it, then they'll get a share as things stand today.
It's got NOTHING to do with their relationship; it's viewed as being a business transaction.
Just as I'd get a share if I bought a house with my sister or close friend and we decided to sell it.

Also, the 'intimate relationship' thing is
a, Hard to prove.
b, Reduces people to level of prostitutes who deserve some kind of financial reward for sleeping with another adult.

living together shouldnt have the same legal rights as marriage. you can always buy a house together and be legally entangled that way

Re next of kin. I always pop up on these threads to point out that for adults over 16, if there was a terrible accident, the only person who gets to decide what treatment you have is your doctor or you if you are able to give consent. Your loved ones will be asked for their opinion but they are not able to give or refuse treatment on your behalf. The doctor treating you must act 'in your best interests'.

I don't get it. If you're expecting to be together forever, then why not just get married or CP'd? It's a legal and civil thing; it's not like it has to be religious if that's not your thing. Equally, if you're worried about your kids not being protected in the event of a separation, again why not just get hitched?

And if your partner is willing to get you pregnant, but less willing to take on the responsibilities and permanence of marriage, why the hell are you still with them?

No flaming here! But I will say that there are other ways a partner can demonstrate permanence othe than marriage: putting partner as joint owner of the property they live in, making wills naming partner as inheritor, naming her as nok and so on.
So, no, I don't think that marriage has to be present for an explicit declaration of commitment.

I seriously think that Sir Nicholas Wall is out of touch- really I do.
Most people accept that cohabitation is perfectly acceptable, but draw the line at it having same rights as marriage because:

a, They (very reasonably) think: why the heck don't you marry if you want these rights?
Most of us haven't got time for the 'not religous' argument. Let's face it; we're pretty secular as a nation- don't have to be religious to get married for goodness sake.

b, In the UK, we respect that people should be allowed to live with another adult free of legal ties should they wish it.

sorry.. couldn't resist

No flaming from me either. If people in that situation aren't married (and don't have other legal arrangements) I would assume that was their choice which should be respected. Not that they should be effectively 'married' against their will anyway for their own good!

Marantha, yes, apologies, bad phraseology - point being was that it related to properties purchased rather than rented (in response to some previous posts).

To the point about 'intimate' relationships, I don't think that's hard to prove or intrusive. It's simply to prove that you're living together as a couple rather than mates - not exactly hard to show that you're a couple and it's not as though they're going to get a sex questionnaire as part of it.

In terms of getting these rights, why on earth should you marry to earn these rights? Marriage isn't about earning specific legal rights to the vast majority of people who do marry ? I?m married, I certainly don?t recall thinking I must ask DW to marry me so we could ensure equitable co-habiting rights and any appropriate tax advantages. Making a link between marriage and property rights dates from another century entirely when they were necessarily linked. We don?t make any other meaningful rights contingent on being married.

I actually find it pretty shocking that people don?t think cohabiting parties shouldn?t have rights and shouldn?t have obligations to each other ? the thought that a couple who don?t want to get married, one party can kick the other party out onto the streets after living together for a decade is so inequitable it?s untrue.

And of course, it wouldn?t be a blanket set of rights either ? not like you?ve just moved in with your BF or GF and suddenly you have 50% of their flat. It would be linked to how long you?ve been together, what your investment has been etc etc. So it was actually fair (rather than the current state...)

Marantha, Ephiny - Exactly. A simple procedure exists for giving you all those rights and protections: getting hitched. If for whatever reason you really don't want to do that, but still see yourselves as permanently committed, then it's not unreasonable that the onus should be on you to ensure you've done the necessary legal stuff to underpin that commitment. It's not the law's job to do that for you, when a suitable institution already exists.

I say this not because I think in some uber-conservative way that marriage is intrinsically virtuous. But it is a serious contract with legal ramifications, that's underpinned by deep love and commitment. The only thing I thought was broken in the institution of marriage, until recently, was the absence of similar protection for same-sex couples. Having fixed that, I don't see why any more tinkering is needed.

If you haven't opted for marriage, nor done the legal leg-work yourselves, chances are you don't want a commitment contract of that sort. The idea of forcing one on couples in that situation strikes me as an idea that'd benefit no-one except lawyers.

There should probably be more awareness/education about cohabiting rights though, plenty of people are under the misapprehension that they're a 'common-law wife', or that being with someone a long time or having their children magically gives them certain rights. Which it doesn't (currently).

cestlavie - I do think marriage in itself is exactly about earning specific legal rights. All the other stuff that often goes along with marriage - being in love, living together, buying a house together, starting a family, making a declaration of commitment in front of friends and family etc can all be done without entering into a legally binding marriage contract.

Ephiny - you know, I just don't get that. Why should marriage (in a secular society) be about earning specific rights?

OHM - I get that you can arrange for those rights to be put in place legally, but (to be brutal) that requires a some cost and a degree of legal awareness. I bet if you were to ask a sample of 1,000 people across the country what rights you get from living together a lot of answers would come back thinking that they've got some rights to the property.

my dp and I have been together for 7 years, lived together for 6 years.

We have;

wills setting out what each inherits including a "living will" stating wishes and naming each other as next of kin.
a deed of trust detting out who owns what proportion of the house and stating that if one partner dies the other is entitled to live there until their death or until they choose to sell.
life assurance that pays out to the surviving partner

We don't need to get married and putting those documents in place cost less than £400 all told.

I can't really see what advantage changes to the law will give unless you end up with a particularly nasty person who attempts to fleece you, but lets face it marriage won't protect you from that.

DP was not on the mortgage for the home he shared with his ex but he was awarded a significant proportion of the equity because he was the sole earner and paid all mortgage and bills.

cestlavie - To be similarly brutal, ignorance isn't a defence in any other branch of the law, why should it be different here?

On the same logic, if lots of people believe that it's legal to drive on the wrong side of the road, does that mean the law should be changed to reflect that?