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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU benefits of marriage without marriage

369 replies

serbska · 30/08/2018 09:41

Yes another persona complaining LIFE ISN'T FAIR because they can't access a benefit for married people, because they weren't married.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-45348176/bereavement-allowance-widowed-mum-on-why-her-kids-are-penalised

If you want to be free and easy, stay as DPs. If you want the legal protection and benefits of married, get married. It costs a few quid down the registry office.

OP posts:
P3onyPenny · 30/08/2018 21:13

What utter tosh. Other couples getting widows benefit doesn’t affect anybody else. It’s s benefit. The more people supported after the death of a spouse the better. The law needs to change. Aside from being fairer it would stop the spite of a few resenting others and wagging their finger for absolutely no good reason.

P3onyPenny · 30/08/2018 21:19

Not entirely sure why this benefit is singled out. Going by the logic of some on here unmarried spouses shouldn’t receive any benefits.Hmm

LeroyJenkins · 30/08/2018 21:20

@ChanklyBore
Yes, it is my children’s inheritance I mean, not my partner’s. Inheritance tax, spouses pensions, death in service benefits and life insurances being some of the reasons

i'm not seeing how you being married makes any difference to your childrens inheritance?
AFAIK the only difference being married makes is that a partner can leave to their spouse and then the remaining spouse can leave twice the limit to their children before the taxes hit around

The current inheritance tax (IHT) threshold is £325,000 per person. It doubles to £650,000 for a married couple - as long as the first person to die leaves their entire estate to their partner. Anything over this limit is subject to a 40% tax bill.24 Oct 2014

LeroyJenkins · 30/08/2018 21:21

death in service / life insurance goes to who you nominate,

your children will never get a spouses pension from you, only a dependants one (no difference if you are married or not)

LeroyJenkins · 30/08/2018 21:22

@P3onyPenny only married persons benefits, if you want the benefits that marriage gives you then get married?

P3onyPenny · 30/08/2018 21:29

Why? Do you know how ridiculous and outdated that sounds. It needs changing and hopefully we’re one step nearer to that happening. Perhaps we should stick married on the front of child benefit or any other benefit. Sure it would make a few on here happier.Hmm

PaulDacreRimsGeese · 30/08/2018 21:32

I wonder how many people now celebrating this result have previously been on threads about the potential advantages of marriage, pooh-poohing the sum as irrelevant...

This benefit is a bit different to some others because it's based on the past NI contributions of someone other than the recipient, rather than income as most of them are, or one's own contributions. It only being available to married couples made a certain amount of sense in the context of the history of the benefit, but I think we are now moving towards something that's seen as going with the child specifically. And I think that does more accurately reflect modern life really.

Now I'm usually rather unsympathetic to selfish special snowflaking me not having to go to a registry office is more important than other people being able to cohabit without a forced legal contract. But I don't actually think this benefit falls into that category. To me it looks a bit different to that.

LeroyJenkins · 30/08/2018 21:36

P3onyPenny Thu 30-Aug-18 21:29:00
Why? Do you know how ridiculous and outdated that sounds. It needs changing and hopefully we’re one step nearer to that happening. Perhaps we should stick married on the front of child benefit or any other benefit. Sure it would make a few on here happier.hmm

have you not read the posts from people that dont want an automatic marriage after living together? the widow who wants to make sure that her assets go to her children, not to the person shes currently living with, and then what if she takes in a lodger and she dies and he says -oh we were living together, therefore her assets are mine?- how does that work?

Marriage should be done with intent, not drifted in to - and if you want the benefits and rights that are attached to marriage.... etc etc

P3onyPenny · 30/08/2018 21:42

Other couples getting a benefit after losing their partner has nothing to do with assets,nothing at all.

LeroyJenkins · 30/08/2018 21:47

but why cant they have the assets if you are assuming they are together because they share an address?

Sunnymeg · 30/08/2018 21:52

If they decide to pay benefits to a surviving partner, this will open a can of worms. They would have to decide a minimum time period that the couple will have needed to be together, presumably this would need to be ratified by Parliament. The person wishing to claim benefits would have to prove they were cohabiting and the date at which this started. All this could prove problematic. It is far easier to rely on a. marriage certificate which can be verified quickly.

I'd also say that if you are living together you have very little protection if you split up and your ex partner then marries. I know someone who had been living with her partner for over 20 years and was the mother of his children. He left her and had remarried within 6 months. His former partner immediately lost all of her rights the minute he. signed the marriage register.

PrimalLass · 30/08/2018 21:54

have you not read the posts from people that dont want an automatic marriage after living together?

this is about a particular benefit that discriminates against children, not de facto marriage.

P3onyPenny · 30/08/2018 21:55

Well unless she/ he’d had children with said lodger it wouldn’t be an issue. Said benefit is until youngest leave school.

PrimalLass · 30/08/2018 21:56

The person wishing to claim benefits would have to prove they were cohabiting and the date at which this started.

The benefits system already manages this fine.

Sunnymeg · 30/08/2018 21:59

Primal Lass - Fair enough, I've never had to deal with them

Bluelady · 30/08/2018 22:01

The benefits system copes because people at the same address claim those benefits. How would it work for people who don't claim or receive any benefits?

Charley50 · 30/08/2018 22:05

The electoral register, their address as given to work, bank etc, mortgage repayments, rental agreements, all sorts of things...

PaulDacreRimsGeese · 30/08/2018 22:09

Probably not that well, but then I don't think the tax credits system does a particularly magnificent job of it either.

PrimalLass · 30/08/2018 22:09

The benefits system copes because people at the same address claim those benefits.

Well we only claim child benefit, and I assume most parents are registered for that. If we can lose some because of DP's income then it should be just as simple to claim some if something tragic happened to him.

P3onyPenny · 30/08/2018 22:16

Most would be getting child benefit.

The benefit is to diminish the loss of a parent. Pretty sure a freshly bereaved child couldn’t care less if his / her parents were married. The state shouldn’t either.

Bluelady · 30/08/2018 22:18

Maybe not but it does.

PaulDacreRimsGeese · 30/08/2018 22:20

The majority of parents claim child benefit. The percentage claiming it whilst living as a partner with the child's other parent, married or not, will be lower.

theipadsavedmylife · 30/08/2018 22:23

I'm not married but have been married in the past. Whilst I own my home jointly with my DP and we have DC together I just don't want to get married again. It's joke if it doesn't work out ( been through no fault of your own. Forsaking all others Hmm) We have wills and my pension names each other to benefit on death. I doubt we will spilt up, but I don't know.

Iamagreyhoundhearmeroar · 30/08/2018 22:27

How is it a "joke" if a marriage doesn't work out? How does the breakdown of a relationship have any bearing on whether the couple were legally married or not?

Doobydoo · 30/08/2018 22:35

Yabu Op. Dp and I together 20 years. Learn to spell.

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