Getting married and not telling anyone?

[Differentusername70]

I've NC for this.

DP and I have been living together for years, no shared children, we are in our 50's and 60's, and we are very happy as we are, balanced with assets and finances and share all that we have. I'm approaching early retirement, he's already retired.

We really ought to get married/ enter into civil partnership to protect our finances, we have wills but we will be exposed to inheritance tax in the event one of us dies.

Getting married with our families in attendance will be a logistical nightmare working around close family members who live overseas and are tied to school holidays, ditto UK relatives who live at the other end of the country and are tied to often different school holidays. My family is huge and we'd usually invite everyone.

It would be 2027 at the earliest before we could even get the close familes together and having already had a cancer diagnosis (me) a few years ago that worries both of us.

We tempted with getting married and telling absolutely nobody. It is literally just to fix the financial position, we don't feel the need to be married. I wouldn't change my name regardless.

We might, possibly have a blessing or similar in the future so the grandchildren can be bridesmaids/ pages and we could tell everyone then.

Has anyone done this? How bad would this be? We know that to work we would have to tell no-one!

We did it too the day before a big family just us, two friends and our DC it was perfect, few members of our family were a bit annoyed but that’s a them problem.

If we hadn't been in a partnership and I'd died, then DH would have had to sell the house to pay the IHT. The alternative would have been to pay the equivalent of a Michelin 1 star restaurant meal for 2 each month in insurance, due to age and pre-existing conditions. We've had some lovely meals out!

IHT bands are different between married or CP partners and cohabiting partners. There is no IHT between the couple and the ability to then pass down allowances.

Wills and LPAs are very necessary as well for any couple by they don't resolve the IHT situation.

Well I would find out when they pass which would be even worse. You can’t keep these things a secret forever, it’s a legal document that they are doing for inheritance so of course the people inheriting will find out.

yes, we did this. Eloped to the Caribbean & had a beautiful wedding on the beach with just us & DSS.

Everyone was happy for us when we came back

Great idea. We'll do this eventually - no desire to be married (and the idea of a wedding horrifies me - all those eyes looking at you!) but eventually we'll be liable for inheritance tax and it will be financially sensible. Not a problem at the moment as we don't have enough assets.

I would be inclined to tell children beforehand or soon after, just so they know your legal status.

And as it always comes up on these threads - NOK is not a legal definition in the UK. You can say it's whoever you want, you nominate them when you go into hospital.

We got married for roughly the same reasons. We had our wills in place and were financially sorted, had been together for 10 years and decided to get married yes for love and commitment but mainly the legal side.

My DH is not from the UK and getting his family over was not a possibility. So we had a very small registry office affair with my DD, her DH,
DGC and another person for witness.

I made the mistake of telling my DSis, she tried everything ahead could to get me to change
my mind. She was not invited!

We went for a meal at the local pub after.

We have been married for 7 years now. My DH had a serious health event a little while ago. I dread to think of the difficulties I would have experienced if we had not got married.

Everything is now sorted legally, which is effective when it’s needed and gives such peace of mind.

Oh, that is so sad! Many PPs have said tell the DC, we did. Maybe he had his reasons. No will ever know will they?

Not getting, already done it. Told everyone afterwards with exception of DS who knew it was happening but not when.

We did it. Was great, the best thing we could have done. It was for different reasons - I couldn’t stand being the center of attention at a wedding ceremony

Doing it and not saying a word can be a wise way, and a couple of years from now say "oh yea, we sorted that out a few years ago for legal protection, no fuss".
Completely play it down.
Refuse to allow anyone to hijack the narrative that you have somehow let them down.
I did the traditional wedding years ago for everyone other than us.
If I had my time over I would elope.

DP and I have no plans to get married but that's how we'd get married if we did.

I never intended to get married. What are your thoughts on ageing and the legal side of things.

To me it’s not an odd setup. The resources I had before I met dp I want to pass on to my son, and he wants to pass what he has onto his adult children. That’s hardly unusual, and neither of us would have moved in together, still less planned to get married, if it was going to be any other way. I have seen too many children of a first marriage screwed over due to a poorly planned second.

DP may inherit enough to buy ds out of the house and continue to live here, once I’m not around. That’s fine. I don’t think ds and dp will live together, dp is not ds’s stepdad, he’s ds’s mum’s boyfriend.

We've been together 23 years and we've taken all the legal steps we need to take in terms of inheriting each other's property etc. I'm 49 and he's 57. All our workplace pensions will pay out to a named cohabiting partner in the same way that they would pay out to a spouse. We don't have any children. We own a house jointly and neither of our estates meet the threshold for inheritance tax.

I suppose if they ever did hit the threshold, we'd get married, but we wouldn't tell anyone. Apart from anything, the only reason our estates might hit the threshold would be because our surviving parents had died, and our mothers are basically the only people who might conceivably be mildly offended if we got married without telling them

@BauhausOfEliott thanks for your response. Interesting, informative. We have to plan for the future and you have.

My DH had a serious health event, totally out of the blue as these things have a tendency to do. Thankfully he made it, but he does have life long lasting effects. When we had to go through all of the agencies and organisations to get to were we are now, I experienced the ease the title Mrs, gave me, during a really frightening time of our lives. I have had to take over agency in all of his effects and sometimes pull a bit of weight when the lesser agencies like phone providers insist on getting his permission for me to talk on his behalf.

Personally I am so thankful to now be
married, which we did for the legal reasons.

Yes I know that LPA gives me that authority but all of this happed before we had finalised that.

So, another definite reason for getting,
as we say on MN, all your ducks in a row!

We did this last year, both in our 50’s, together 30 years and had a civil partnership, no rings, lovely but cheap dress I can wear again. The difference we have two adult children who were our witnesses and it was lovely and protects us from inheritance tax!

I think that sort of thing is best done in the way you want (eg very quiet non fuss) but with people’s knowledge whether now or once it's done. It’s the kind of secret that becomes destructive after you’re gone or if some thing happens, it does change the legal position in terms of inheritance priority for your children and decision making if you’re ill etc.