To wonder why there isn’t public outrage about this?

[Blusterylimp]

If a couple isn’t married but own their property between them, the surviving one will need to pay inheritance tax on their partners half of the house (and other assets) if they die.
Effectively they will lose their home to pay the IHT unless they also have huge savings.
How can that be allowed in this day and age when so many couples cohabit without getting married?

There is plenty you can do about it.

You can specify who you deem to be your Next of Kin. You can put this in your passport, get it put on your GP notes, tell any hospital, tell your employer etc. You can make a Will saying what form your funeral will take and who makes decisions. You can set up LPA (everyone should) for Health and Welfare and for Finance, naming your partner or whoever you choose.

If you are a joint tenant you both own all the house together. It also means if the other person leaves they can come after you for all the mortgage.

So on death the other tenant inherits the house automatically, without the need for a will. However the value of half the house will be considered part of the estate and any money over £325,000 is taxed at 40%.

So if you die and your mortgage-free house is worth £800,000, and you have no other assets, your partner inherits £400,000 of house because it's already theirs with you and they own the other "half", and you have died, so now they are responsible for all of it. But half the value of the house is considered yours by the state. Your partner would pay £30,000 in tax (40% of the £75,000 above the inheritance tax threshold). As they have an asset worth £800k a mortgage could be taken out or the house sold.

But only about 7% of people who die, leave enough assets so that inheritance tax is due.

There should be a say to protect couples in this position who dont want to get married.

I can't make any sense of this. I'm finding your posts very confusing. You seem to be aggrieved about something different from the OP. Whether a family home gets sold or not, whether inheritance tax is due or not, the people inheriting end up far better off than those whose parents leave them nothing or a few thousands in savings - i.e. the great majority of the population. What's so awful about some of that inheritance, which is a windfall, going in tax? If I ran the world there would be a lot more inheritance tax paid, actually. The huge amounts some people inherit from ridiculous house prices have had a very bad effect on social mobility in this country. Time we tried to adjust that a bit.

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I don't see the issue @Blusterylimp

I'm not married. I own my house outright and did so before my partner moved in.

I don't want to change my status and be married.

I want to retain my independence in the choices I can take ( based on experience of my previous marriage when I cam home to find my then DH had left for another woman and our house had a for sale board outside).

I'm never going to have my choices taken away again (and understand other IHT implications).

Yes it does! It passes to the other party (it can’t do anything BUT pass to the other party), but the estate has to be assessed for IHT (like all estates) and if the 50% of the value exceeds £325k, then IHT is owed.

Married estates do the same, except the calculation then has 100% exemption.

Civil partnership.

When it comes to IHT, each person is deemed to own half the house. It's a simple exercise to work out the value of half of the property. The same thing applies with joint bank accounts and other joint assets.

Civil Partnership?

Why don't people want to get married though? You can't refuse to get married with the only reason being 'because I don't want to!' and then complain that you're not getting all the married person benefits. Why SHOULD you when you CBA to get married?! There is really no reason on earth to not get married. I always think if people don't want to get married, it's because they're waiting for someone better to come along.

Just get married FFS - if you do actually love your partner, why wouldn't you?!

You don't even have to tell anyone. 🙄

Don't buy a house with someone you are not married to!

Presumably you would leave your half of the house to.your family, not your boyfriend or girlfriend.

Yes, I know, but there are plenty of people who don't know this and get surprised and upset. And if the police are involved in a death they often go for the legal next of kin and don't check a passport, GP notes or a will.

Equally about half of the people in a co-habiting relationship believe they have a "common-law marriage" and can inheritance from their partner, which is incorrect.

The government had an inquiry in 2022 and recommended that more information is available to non-married people, particularly those in religious marriages that have not been recognised by the state. They also recommended that inheritance rights are given to non-married people. However no government has done anything about it.

But since the house is owned by the company then the value of the house will be reflected in the value of the shares.

Up until the last budget, many small companies were entirely exempt from IHT. I'm sure you're quite aware of how things have changed since. But it's still a better situation than a person owning a home.

The big downside of course is when/if you come to sell the house. The company won't be eligible for private residence relief so there will be CGT payable on the full amount of the gain in value.

Because there is a lot of nuances to this, and some people may not be able to get married yet they still fulfil the same role as a wife or husband. I'd relax a bit too, have a kitkat, it was only a comment!

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Who is not able to get married in the UK?

Not sure why you are shouting?

My reference to next of kin was in relation to who inherits without a will under intestacy rules.

The PoA advice was a completely separate paragraph. If there is no health PoA doctors have the right to make decisions but this is usually in partnership with a close relative - which could be perceived as a parent or relative rather than an unmarries partner by someone who doesn't know about detailed family background - hence my advice to get a POA!

Well, the gov.uk website says this:

Joint tenants

You automatically inherit anything you owned as ‘joint tenants’.

You may have to pay Inheritance Tax if the whole of the deceased’s estate (all their money, property and possessions) is worth more than the Inheritance Tax threshold of £325,000 and the deceased’s estate does not pay.

https://www.gov.uk/tax-property-money-shares-you-inherit/joint-property-shares-bank-accounts

& pension pots!

If you want to not deal with IHT the state imposes, then you have to get the state involved in your relationship before death. It will be involved after the death either way.

The state is thankfully not psychic and they do not measure these sorts of things based on how committed people are to each other. It's did you contractually involve the state or not - that's it.

Common law unions take away people's ability to choose to live together without getting the state involved. In places which have brought that in, there have been consequences including people having to not move in together to avoid their finances getting legally combined and there have been news reports of lodgers trying to make claims based on them having 'lived together' after their previous landlord's death which, even when thrown out of court, drags the family in ways no one needs.

Neither civil partnerships or even marriage really requires a ceremony. I eloped over twenty years ago, the 'ceremony' was us each reading a statement to each other then signing the paperwork before going to lunch and a movie.

Because they've either rewritten laws or created new ones

No politician here is that bothered

It doesn’t require any kind of ceremony or party. Friends of mine recently got married. Just the two of them and two friends. They just told everyone afterwards.

It doesn’t require any kind of ceremony or party. Friends of mine recently got married. Just the two of them and two friends. They just told everyone afterwards

absolutely, dh was a witness at a wedding last year and it was in a registry with both witnesses and their partners….out to lunch afterwards. They do not intend telling anyone else