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?

Yep.

What's being described here is what women, as a group, tend to do in relationships with men. There's no evidence that women in partnerships do any less of this if they're not married.

I've no objection to this sort of critical analysis of marriage, but it means doing the same for unmarried cohabitation too, otherwise we're just conflating marriage and partnership. Patriarchy is very happy indeed when women do the same old shit without the legal benefits.

It makes good sense otherwise two friends could live together just to avoid paying inheritance tax if one dies. That’s unfair and would be open to huge abuse.

But you dont HAVE to marry. I think most people on here are saying get advice, see if marriage/CP is better for you, if yes, marry or CP, if no stay unmarried.

I'm in the let's not get married camp, because I'm the higher earner. I want my children to get my house, hopefully there will be enough in savings and insurance to pay any IHT due, my partner has the right to remain in this house for a while, I'm not going to have him thrown out the day after my death.

It suits me to not get married, it suits others to get married, I do not want and will protest against a defacto marriage. No one should be entered into a contract without their knowledge. No one should have to opt out when there are two opt ins.

I know labour have thought up this stupid plan to class people as good as married after a certain length of time living together, I do not want this, most people dont want this.
It's a ridiculous idea and very open to fraud.

Those friends could easily enter a civil partnership.

I only have a £325,000 IHT allowance due to my house v;lue and being unmarried despite the house equity already being taxed at 40% due to my divorce from a lower earner etc.

I would abolish IHT entirely as Sweden has done or have it at levels of $26m per could US$13m per single person as in the USA.

The UK not a good place to die is you have over £325k and are single.

I'm pretty sure Labour haven't suggested anything like that. That would be batshit even for them. What do you mean?

My bad, I didnt read the thread properly

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5258165-cohabitation-rights-campaign-from-rights-of-women?page=1

That was my point - my poor mother also had to pay out after being a single parent to me and having no maintenance, so 2 generations of hard working single mum's being penalised here. Both men went on to have more kids and left them high and dry too. Why we have to rely on them for our kids to get a full inheritance is what annoys me.

You still have £500k as a single person with children. And you personally won’t pay a penny because you’ll be dead.

Marriage is essentially just a legal recognition and protection of legal rights of a joint partnership.

I can understand the choice of not getting married, but part of that is weighing up pros and cons and accepting you are not automatically going to have the same legal benefits.

Getting married solves it. There is a solution

An IQ of a 157, eh? Well you must be VERY clever indeed. The scale only goes up to 160 and a score of 157 would place you in the top 0.0072% of the population.

Bravo

What am I missing?

So the point is to penalise kids who didn't have married parents?

Who’s doing the penalising? It’s a choice.

Want the benefits of marriage - get married.

Not the point od this thread ut you are teaching me things I'd never heard of before. My daughter is in the process of of buying with her D not-husband. Does the both owning the entire property happen at purchase?

Maybe they also have different laws around inheriting houses, joint finances and other stuff mentioned. Maybe relationships often break down before they get to default married stage, maybe the people of those countries dont know about the cohabitation laws or maybe the downsides are never mentioned.

Sweden has cohabitation laws, but a) they don't apply to inheritance, but deal with sharing assets acquired during cohabitation and b) Sweden has no inheritance tax.

Also, nobody will check if you are deeply in love and having sex in your marriage. If 2 friends wanted to take advantage of the system, the could get married, no?

Personally I am not a big supporter of the cohabitation laws, as you may create rights and obligations unintentionally. Just because I want to live with someone, I might not want them to have the same rights as a spouse. This would mean people need to actively opt out.

This is why I disagree with cohabitation laws. I am married and we have two children. If I was no longer married and wanted to get into a new relationship ( if I lost my mind) then I would not want my new partner to have half my assets by default. That belongs to my children. If we want to create obligations then we should actively opt into them. Not just have them by default because some people can't be bothered to understand their rights. Civil partnerships were allowed for Straight couples for precisely thus reason. Yet somehow people don't want to even turn up to a register office and sign a piece if paper if they want to benefit from inheritance tax allowances?

Yes. You can choose to buy as joint tenants or tenants in common at the conveyancing stage.

Absolutely this. Single women with careers do better than married, but with regards to rights, if women are giving up careers or going part time in a cohabiting relationship then they are far worse off. Half of marriages end in divorce but many more cohabiting relationships with children end before the child is 5 than married ones. They are then left with no rights. Which is why so many men say they don't believe in marriage and it's ' just a piece of paper' when they often know full well it's not.

I think the main takeaway from this thread is that we're seeing the consequences of the "marriage is just a piece of paper" myth that men have been pushing for decades now.

Thanks so much. Is there anywhere that I can check out the pros and cons? I know daughter could but she is a bit starry eyed at the moment!

Your DD's solicitor will be able to explain the difference to help her decide. Most people buy as joint tenants unless there is a particular reason to choose tenancy in common (like the inheritance point, or wanting a different split of ownership from 50/50).