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?

"And stop assuming marriage always financially benefits women because that is a deeply sexist and completely incorrect assumption."
I definitely agree with this. In my own marriage DH is the benefactor financially. If I wanted to fuck off with my much better credit rating and all the stuff in my own name I certainly could do so were we not married. He isn't even on the contract for his own mobile!
In general, because of the way society is structured, women tend to benefit on the whole.
Although this doesn't apply on very low incomes where cohabitation of any kind (married or not) tends to result in a loss of benefits income.

If you are in a relationship with an EU citizen and marry them you’ll get certain rights to travel if those are stripped post brexit. A cohabitee/ partner doesn’t get those rights. Quite specific but will apply to some (like me) www.google.co.uk/amp/s/europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/residence/family-residence-rights/non-eu-wife-husband-children/indexamp_en.htm

I'm getting married because it's cheaper than both of us writing wills The £200-odd less tax payment is a bonus.

I think a lot of the, erm, frustration on threads that mention this is caused by women who already are financially vulnerable thinking common law is a thing, and that when "D"P embarks on an affair they can't be kicked out of a house that's in his name. For example.

My sister's partner died suddenly last year, he had no will. They didn't own a house and earned about the same and both had kids from previous relationships.
My sister got nothing from the life insurance, pension etc. No widow benefits. She had no money to pay for the funeral or the cost of transporting his body home from the other end of the country.
His kids got everything including the car.
It's made an awful situation much much worse.
I think you have to think about what would happen if one of you died, if you split etc and how it would be dealt with. Most people don't do this and getting married would solve the problem.
Personally I think that civil partnership should be abolished. Same sex couples didn't want them, they wanted equality.

I've read the citizens advice page linked to further up. It doesn't cover an inheritance tax point that I thought was raised on the other thread. If IHT is payable, and I appreciate that for most couples it isn't, is there a difference between being married and unmarried in terms of allowances?

Yes! You can inherit your partner's unused allowance if you're married, you can't if you're not.

Honestly though, anyone in a long term relationship with assets and/or property who isn't married needs to be visiting a solicitor, if nothing else to draw up a will. It's imperative you don't die without a will if you have an unmarried partner and want them to benefit. Cos they won't.

MN can give you generalised advice which is a valid thing in it own right- every time we have a marriage thread someone comes on to say they never knew all this. But you need something tailored. Couple of hundred quid should do it less than the cost of a wedding mind.

Also, marriage financially benefits women as a class. If you take us as a group, we have less in the way of income and assets, like it or not, and marriage benefits the poorer party in this respect. Pointing this out isn't sexism.

However, there are women for whom this doesn't hold true. It's obviously daft to make a decision based on what's best for the majority when they have a characteristic that you don't.