Legal and financial benefits of marriage?

[MsPennybloom]

Posting for traffic and in relation to a thread, what are the legal rights and benefits of marriage vs cohabitation? Is there such a thing as common law marriage?

Surely the answers to your question are on the existing thread?

No, people just state there's no protection unless married etc, but never state exactly why. I've wondered this and was going to start a thread yesterday asking exactly what the protection is.

And no, common law marriage doesn't exist

My sister wasn't married and when her partner died suddenly she wasn't entitled to the death in service benefit from his employer (got split between 2 of his children, one of which was an adult who he hadn't seen for years and my sister wasnt her mother) and she didn't get bereavement support payments either. She was left with no money and had to apply for help towards his funeral. If they'd been married she would have got more help

No such thing as common law marriage.

Benefits include no inheritance tax between married couples, no capital gains tax either as it’s counted as nil gain nil loss.

Automatic assumption of next of kin in case one of you dies intestate (i.e with no will).

Married couples tax allowances which allow you to transfer some of your tax-free personal allowance to your spouse (this is especially useful for lower earners).

Automatic entitlement to widowers / widows pension if one of you dies.

Have a look on the relationships board and see what happens when not having that “bit of paper” means you’re either stuck in a shit relationship or manage to leave but get completely screwed.

There are plenty of threads about this, have a read of them.

In my opinion, the the main benefit is that you tie in all your obligations to each other (and any children) at an early stage when your still loved up- instead of hashing it out later when things are acrimonious.
I guess the main things are that both parties have rights to the children and to the matrimonial home.

No such thing as next of kin in English law - there’s no legal meaning to the term. Spouses do have the right to inherit if there is no will which doesn’t exist for non married couples. Things like death in service vary according to policy- I have never had one where I didn’t nominate who it was to go to. Usually they are written as discretionary trusts so they can pass outside the estate so the trustees could equally pass them to a long term partner as a spouse.

Also if you are married you can claim a share of the assets of the other party on divorce. Of course they can claim on your assets too. So there’s no ”protection” unless you are the lower earner or one with fewer assets. Rather the opposite in fact.

No difference re “rights”to children diluting juice. Doesn’t matter if you are married or not

We got legally married for 3 reasons

1. Legal protection for DH as the father.
2. Married tax allowance
3. No death duty.

We had a wedding because we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together and to share that with friends and family.

zsazsajuju I thought the children born in a marriage were assumed to be the husbands children. Whereas children born to unmarried parents would need the father to be specifically added to the birth certificate.

OP, you could have googled this yourself

www.citizensadvice.org.uk/family/living-together-marriage-and-civil-partnership/living-together-and-marriage-legal-differences/

Here's a good example of why couple should legally protect themselves with "a little piece of paper" called marriage.

Fred was married to Enid in his 20's. They split but never bothered with a divorce. 20+ years later, both with long term partners each and children each, Fred dies. All his assets (that are not in his partners name) go to some woman he hasn't seen for over 20 years. Enid. His children and the woman he's lived with for decades aren't legally entitled to inherit a thing so whilst dealing with the death of their partner/father, his family have to go to court to contest the inheritance.

That "little bit of paper" means a lot legally. You wouldn't call house deeds "a little bit of paper" or a £50 note either.

You don’t have any more rights to your own children because you are married to the mother. You are just presumed to be the father legally which presumption is rebuttable. So no more actual rights. A man who is listed on the birth certificate is also presumed to be the father. So no need to get married if you want to be presumed to be the father of your kid. Just go with the mother to register the birth.

People should get married if they like and there are advantages and disadvantages. But these mumsnet threads are always full of nonsense and misconceptions.

I think you should only get married if you love someone and want to share your life with them. Not cos you think you might get a share of their final salary pension or such. But maybe I am an old romantic! Ultimately though I have always been able to support myself so don’t need someone else for that.

Also what is sad about these threads is they often end up being quite judgemental and even mean about unmarried mothers. And ultimately really the judgement is coming from middle class women who don’t earn their own money judging other women who they think didn’t marry well or at all. It’s pretty outdated and a bit silly. Where will the “protection” of relying on someone else for your income be if he loses his job? Or gambles all the “family” money away. Or is just generally a bit feckless with cash. Marriage is no guarantee of financial security even if you are the poorer party. And if you’re not, well it could put you behind financially for years.

There’s nothing wrong with getting married but we should stop being so judgmental on those who choose not to or end up not getting married for whatever reasons. And stop assuming marriage always financially benefits women because that is a deeply sexist and completely incorrect assumption.

You don’t need to be married to get a death in service pension. You just need to have been nominated as the beneficiary. Although I suppose (but don’t know for sure) if someone doesn’t fill the forms in, their spouse maybe gets it automatically.

Common law doesn’t exist anymore, I was told

If your married and you split you are entitled roughly to half of everything including the house. If you're not then you take simply what is in your name. If your married and a SAHM mum or caring for a disabled child and you split you could be entitled to spousal support. Not married? No spousal suppprt. DH supports his ex wife to the tube of £2000 a month in spousal support. Had they not been married he'd owe her child maintenance only which works out to bugger all. Oh and the spousal support is until she dies... so quite a big difference!

Cannae- I think a divorce would work just as well in your example! Or a will. In fact if the individual who died hadn’t got married in the first place those problems would not have arisen. So marriage caused the problem in your example rather than being the solution.

I believe there’s some spousal privilege in law - possibly that you can’t be charged with conspiracy if you’re married. Not because married life is private, but because married women weren’t previously counted as having their own views. I forget the specifics. Maybe some lawyers about who can help?

Death in service benefits etc would depend on the terms of it - invariably you are asked to nominate who you want to receive the benefits but usually the trustees would have discretion. Marriage wouldn’t necessarily have any advantage in that case.

Well said zsaz. No desire to marry DP after being financially stung by ex-DH. I am the major earner and jointly own our property. I will have the right to stay there to my death ( if he dies first) then it will be sold and split between his children, my children and our DS. His other money can go to his children and my children will inherit from me.

Common law marriage doesn't exist in the UK, it does in some other countries/states.

In Australia there is such a thing as common-law marriage. Kicks in after you live together for 2 years. If you DON'T want to be considered to be defacto and/or avoid having your assets considered joint you have to have a co-habitation agreement stating that.

Here's my experience.

My partner died when I was pregnant with our second child. We weren't married, so I couldn't claim widowed parent allowance, nor could I put DP's name on DC2's birth certificate.

I was OK financially because we had both made wills, DP had made me the beneficiary of his pension (not all workplaces allowed this to unmarried couples - not sure whether that's still the case). Inheritance tax didn't affect us.

We thought we'd covered ourselves, but overlooked WPB.

A few years on, I'm in a new relationship. This time I got married for the extra protection it afforded. Also because DH couldn't have legal parental responsibility if we weren't.

As an aside, I do think that there were some cruel comments on the other thread.

For anyone wishing to take up a job overseas (or emigrate) with their partner it is generally better to be married to obtain the necessary visa(s), residency permits, healthcare etc.

For some expat postings eg. Dubai, Abu Dhabi and some other Asian countries couples can only be admitted if they either arrange work visas in their own right or if the non-working partner is actually married; it is illegal to live with a partner unless married to that person. Even here in the USA it is better for couples to be married if they want to come here on an expat posting or permanent residency (not impossible if not married, but more hoops to jump through and red tape is a nightmare at the best of times!)

OK zsazsajuju I mispoke. I meant there would be a presumption. The reason I brought it up is that it's a consideration. There are circumstances where you might not want that presumption to be made. For example, if you anticipate having to leave the relationship and suspect that ongoing contact might not be in the child's best interests.
I'm certainly not down on unmarried mothers.