To not understand what's wrong with buying a house with someone your not married to?

[smudgedlipstick]

Am I missing something? I have seen and followed a fair few threads on here about people who want to be married but are not, and there is always comments about them being unprotected and at risk. I am in the process of buying a house with my partner, we both work although I work part time, we have a child together and plan to have more in the future. We are both very happy although of course I would like to get married at some point. What am I missing? Is there something terrible that I don't know that will happen if we split after we own a home together?

If your not married he can change his will without you knowing and there is fuck all you can do about it .

If it's legal stuff you're worried about then you don't have to ask him to marry you in a proposal way - if you both agree already that you want to get married some day then a proposal is purely decorative

DH and I bought a house together before we talked about marriage, then a few months later something prompted us to have a conversation about next of kin, and how we would want each other to make decisions for us not our parents, and that organically led to a decision to get married - so we did, a few months later. No need to wait for someone to "propose" which really is a very artificial construct for a couple who own a house together and in your case have a child together already!

Just have a conversation.

Re Next of Kin - there's no law over who a NOK is. However, if you are unable to tell a hospital who you wish it to be they'll usually go with your closest adult relative. So, unmarried people who wish to nominate their partner should see if their health trust has a Next of Kin card (the royal free has a link to one on their website). A welfare power of attorney is another option - it doesn't kick in until it is needed. It's a good thing to have even if you are married, but especially so if you aren't.

I was in exactly your position, we bought a house together - thought we had everything covered pre children, named on respective pensions as next of kin, survivors clause in mortgage, life insurance, agreement on what would happen if we couldnt afford the house or split up, shared finances, clear budgeting

Got pregnant 3 months later, 3 days later we booked in at a registry office and a couple of months later we were married 😁 That was a busy year! But i knew absolutely that while umming and ahhing over marriage was ok pre kids - it absolutely wasnt with them in the equation.

What I didnt know was that my dh would develop a fairly hefty gambling problem (we worked through it ) so while you can forsee and plan to an extent -there is an unknown quantity where these protections are invaluable.

If you hold your property as joint tenants the survivor will inherit the deceased’s share whether they were married or not. If you want to leave your share in the property to someone other than the co-owner, or indeed to hold unequal shares (e.g if one puts a larger deposit down) then you would hold the property as tenants in common. You must make a Will if you choose this option.

Also look at whether the house is valued more than inheritance tax liability

This is the main reason we got married.

You can legally get all the advantages of being married without being married but it is a far more complicated procedure than actually getting married.

When we looked into getting a house together we realised that we wanted/needed to put in place all of the things that marriage would give (house/pension etc) so the easiest (and as we had a very small wedding) and cheapest option was to get married.

Getting married is far easier than faffing around with wills, NOK forms and making sure the house is protected should one of you die.

If you're already living together with a child and plan to buy a house, it would be cheaper to just get married.

So the General consensus is that to save all this hassle it's easier to get married 😂 I have heard things about it's better and all that but never really understood so this has been very helpful and given me lots of things to think about whilst trying to buy a house 😂

Really, really don't wish to sound patronising, OP, but thank goodness you have taken on board all the various good advice offered here. If only such very basic financial/legal information was taught in secondary schools. Then people could make a genuinely free choice. I'm not saying that marriage or civil partnerships are for everyone, but I do believe that people should understand, if possible, what they and perhaps their children are getting themselves into.
Anyway, congratulations and very best wishes when you do get married!

"If only such very basic financial/legal information was taught in secondary schools"

I totally agree with this. Then we wouldn't see so many heartbreaking threads on forums like mumsnet from women who have been left high and dry by their partners.

I admit that I didn't know half of this stuff before joining mumsnet. Although I have been married for over 36 years, so I didn't need to know.

You can legally get all the advantages of being married without being married but it is a far more complicated procedure than actually getting married.

I think you can replicate a fair few but you can't sidestep the inheritance tax if applicable. You also cannot have your details recorded on their death certificate. And you would not be eligible for Widowed Parent's Allowance, again if applicable

Op...if someone happens to you or your other half the next of kin is his parents or yours and as such they be contacted by hospital and could have effect on inheritance. You both need to make a will asap and get proper legal advice.

Another not very nice aspect of not being next of kin is if your partner ends up in hospital on life support. You won't be able to make important decisions on his behalf

Being a spouse or a NOK doesn't confer a legal right to make decisions (medical or financial) for an incapacitated person. You need a lasting power of attorney or the person needs an advance directive in place.

I have to say the misconceptions on here are now starting to annoy me. Such as

It’s more expensive to have legal agreements than get married

You have to keep paying to keep your home if you’re not married and he leaves you

He can change his will without you knowing if you’re not married

If the house is valued at more than IHT liability you have to pay. Actually it’s the partner’s share not the house value so the house would have to be worth at least £650k assuming no other assets

You don’t automatically inherit the other half of the house if you die. Well actually if joint tenants you do

And my personal favourite, don’t faff about with a will just get married. Jesus

My tuppence worth:

If both you and your husband died in an accident, your children will still need a guardian married or not. No-one should have children without a will setting out what happens to your children if you die

If you currently own half your house now, getting married puts that share in the hands of the court if you can’t agree when you split up. It’s not an entitlement anymore. Along with all your other assets

If you get married his liabilities are also part of the pot when you split up.

OP for protecting your home, the best thing is a deed of trust. The joy of that is that it sets out the terms on which either of you could take on the ownership in the event you split up and makes the whole process much clearer. And on death too

*your partner dies

Hard to inherit if it's you who's the deceased

Another one of these threads. There is so much rubbish above re the effect of marriage. There is no legal meaning to next of kin in English law and marriage is irrelevant to that.

The poster who said above that said if you own as joint tenants the survivor will inherit is correct. If you are tenants in common this is not the case and if he had not willed his share to you it would either go to the beneficiary in the will or to your son on intestacy (certainly not his parents).

In English law is is perfectly open to to to leave your property to whoever is you like whether or not you are married.

The main benefit of marriage in your position is that you could get a share of assets you don’t own on divorce (eg his pension). That also applies the other way too so he can get a share of any assets you acquire (eg if you are in the public sector your pension might be worth more than his).

Up to you of course but best to be educated about the facts rather than the next of kin nonsense some people trot out on mn.

If the house is valued at more than IHT liability you have to pay. Actually it’s the partner’s share not the house value so the house would have to be worth at least £650k assuming no other assets

Which is why we got married. Round here, 650K would get you a smallish 3 bed victorian terrace. Depends where you live, of course, but lots of people in London and the SE will be close to or over the IHT threashold.

I have been with my partner for 23 years and we own our own house. Neither of us wanted to get married, but we have mirror wills and enduring powers of attorney. We have no children. If we had had children we would have married as it makes life a lot easier if one of you dies. It's bad enough a spouse dying, without then finding out you have no rights in many areas, and are having to deal with reams of paperwork and solicitors. So, op, I would strongly recommend you get married for the sake and security of your children. It doesn't have to be expensive - just a quick trip to the registry office will do the trick. It's just a piece of paper, but in your situation, a very important one.

You sound like your set up is happy and committed OP. Being married is great for some people, for some it’s not a big deal, for others it’s not all what either of them want.

I’m a big fan. DH didn’t “propose”. We’d both done it before and he has DC with his ex. So when we jointly decided to take the plunge again we talked about what it would mean for us, for his DC, what we’d do differently than we’d done before, what sort of married people we wanted to be. Then we decided to go for it, then we picked a date (half term!) then we planned a wedding. Neither of us has any idea what sort of wedding we wanted so we chatted about it in bed one night, both sent out some enquiry emails then it was sorted in a day or so.

We wanted to be married and so we were.

A lot of people want things to change, or hope things won’t change, or have a clear vision of the perfect day and spend ages pulling it together and/or saving up.

Getting married is really easy. Can cost as little as a couple of hundred pounds or a king’s ransom.

I know loads of people who got married without anyone proposing.

If it’s something you want, have a chat about it

We weren't married when we bought our house but both our names were on the mortgage and title deeds with s survivorship clause, we also had wills which left everything to the other one. I was named on his pension policy as the recipient on his death.

It's such a simple and cheap solution to so many potential problems to get married at the registry office. It's actually cheaper than getting a pair of wills written - and a lot more secure since it can't just be ripped up like a will.
Just treat it like a legal contract and nothing more. You don't even need to tell your friends if you don't want.

You can cut your spouse out of your will but they are then in the category of those that can claim against the estate and they would be in a very strong position to make a claim, unlike an unsupported adult child for example.

I see numerous iht driven marriages though . Even the most ardent anti marriage person baulks at a large essentially avoidable tax bill...

You can legally get all the advantages of being married without being married but it is a far more complicated procedure than actually getting married.

You can't.

You can't get Bereavement Support Payment if you weren't married/CPs. Nor can you get the benefit of the deceased partner's unused IHT nil rate threshold, as you can if you were married or CPs.

In English law is is perfectly open to to to leave your property to whoever is you like whether or not you are married.

Yes zsazsa but the salient point is that as a spouse you can potentially challenge this, whereas for an unmarried partner it's incredibly difficult.

I agree with you about people trotting out NOK nonsense, but if we're talking about facts, this is a pretty important one in terms of people educating themselves.

He can change his will without you knowing if you’re not married

That's not a misconception though ilovetolurk. It's the absolute truth. I suspect you mean he can also do the same if you're married, which is correct, but then we're back to the ability to challenge it again.

I don't think marriage is the best thing for everyone, but do agree with previous posters saying that as this is evidently what OP wants... why wait? You have a child, you're buying a property- bit past the big romantic proposal stage, no?

No married, own a house together, baby on the way. Will however be married before baby comes because we know we won’t get around to it after baby’s born and for some soppy sentimental reasons we feel it’s important to us.

If for some reason we did break up and he all of a sudden became an awful person (I really don’t see this happening), I have every faith that his parents are very reasonable and decent people who would not see me or their (future) grandchild financially screwed over.