Consultation on unmarried couples sharing assets when they break up

[CruCru]

There’s a thing in the Times today which says that there is a consultation on unmarried couples sharing assets after a break up. Pretty much, if they separate they could be entitled to a share of a house sale and maintenance. They could also be given automatic inheritance rights if their partner dies without leaving a Will.

The proposal is that people who live together for three years or who have a child together would have these rights.

AIBU to be a bit conflicted on this? On the one hand, I really wish schools covered marriage and the rights and responsibilities it gives you. I’ve talked to women (who live with their partners) who were really taken aback to find out that they didn’t automatically get the same rights as married couples. On the other hand, when I was young (late teens / early twenties), I lived with a boyfriend who was a bit of a sponger - I’d have been really annoyed to find out that he was entitled to any of my money when we split up.

No, but my point is simply that, if there is an accepted standard way to register or obtain something from/through the government, your choice is either to follow that standard method or not to follow it and then do without any benefits or privileges that it might have conferred on you.

You could also say that a will is 'just a piece of paper', but it's the accepted way to convey your wishes for your assets after you die. It's mad to effectively say "I'm pointedly not going to tell you what I would want, but I still expect you to know exactly what I would want regardless".

As has already been said numerous times on this thread, it's not a neutral thing: for somebody in a couple to be entitled to a share of their ex-partner's individual assets, that necessarily means that the person whose assets they are must lose some/all of them. If you've deliberately sidestepped the accepted way whereby you consent to splitting assets equally should you divorce - marriage - why on earth should the government or anybody get to ignore your decision and distribute your assets how they see fit regardless?

Should we also make wills non-binding, if the government or somebody else 'reckons' that they should know better than you whom you would have wanted to leave your money to after your death?

We need to start treating adults like adults and understand that not getting married is a choice, just as choosing to get married is also a choice. It's a huge insult to tell people who have carefully considered their circumstances and made a decision not to get married that the government knows better than they do and has decided to forcibly effectively marry them off regardless.

I was merely commenting on the many posts saying that it wouldn't or couldn't work. Whether it should or not has nothing to do with me.

Examples please? Personally I think those countries are more forward thinking and modern than the hidebound UK.

Yes, winners & losers. the goal is for some (the wealthier in a couple) to lose some money. Transferred to others. Thereby reducing costs to government.

With and without couples without DC, it’s not primarily about who is working more. Eg with the status quo a couple live together 15, 20, 30 years. Property belongs to one, who also earns much more. Post break up, that one keeps the property. The other receives nothing. Some people in the latter situation will then be eligible for benefits, housing help and so on.

So is this just another flavour of "who can we tax so we can pay more benefits to others?"

Surely more should be put into making sure women (and men) know that if you are not married and live in a house owned by your partner, it is not your house. You are not entitled to anything if you split or he dies. If you are not married and give up work, you are disadvantaged. Advice could be included in ante-natal classes or as part of what you get post-birth.

Tbh I think all women, married or otherwise, should know not to give up work or to make sure they have a skill/job they can call on or get back into easily. Divorced women also lose out this way.

I don't understand this at all.
It is already possible to have a no-fuss marriage.
Already possible. Perhaps civil partnerships require no witnesses but, again, a minor difference if so.

The truth if somebody refuses to get married on the basis of avoiding commitment they are not going to form a civil partnership, either!!

It really is no alternative solution to the my partner won't marry me issue.

Any man or woman of reasonable intellect who looks into it will immediately conclude 'it's the same as marriage.'

What opinions people hold about marriage being patriarchal etc aren't relevant.

Yes, I suppose the proposed change is to protect people (usually women) who find themselves with a partner who refuses to make a legal commitment to them.

And sometimes people say they want the same things at the beginning of a relationship but then back out further down the line - you see this a lot on MN.
If by that stage you have spent a few years together and are tied financially/have kids this kind of law change might be of use.

It is very unfair to force this on people now , many of whom have made their own arrangements. For example, say someone has got a house paid off and a good pension and children from a previous marriage. Then they meet someone and their new partner moves in with them. The house owner then dies. Under these proposals, the whole lot would go to the cohabiting partner thus disinheriting the children from the house owner. How is that fair. It’s a dreadful idea and the vast majority do not want these changes. The government needs to read the room. It looks like people are mostly opposed to this. I would 100% vote against any party trying to put this in place and I say that as someone who voted Labour

Yes your argument is about saving the government money.

I've already said that when all things are taken into consideration: such as joint mortgages, both partners working it may not.

Your idea of unemployed woman-and as I've already said, if both work she'll be on the mortgage, OR be able to demonstrate she has a right to the property as she's paid bills (the law for this already exists I repeat: already exists) being exploited by awful man is outdated.

Indeed I've known of a woman do just this. He paid the mortgage - which was in his name-she paid the utility bills.
It was deemed she had an interest in the property.

In any case, she would STILL require interim benefits and housing from the state while it's all being sorted out.

All this could take years. She'd have to be in receipt of some form of legal aid, too.

So to be fair I don't think your saving government money theory stands up to reality.

Let's not forget, either, that a lot of women are going to be caught up in this if they're the breadwinner and they've let a cocklodger boyfriend live with them.

This is in an interesting topic but I can't see this issue being legislated for.

There's no real reason for it.
So what couples are having children out of wedlock more often, if they have a mortgage it's usually joint and they both work.
Or she pays the bills and can demonstrate she has an interest in the property.

'Palimony' has always been resisted here.

If this were made law, it couldn't be retroactive. It could only be applicable to those who decide to cohabit after it became law.

Surely?

And another thing. According to this study on the Australian government website, in Australia even a Living Apart Together arrangement can be considered a legally de facto relationship.

Well, that's not good.

"The research and commentary also identify relationship arrangements known as 'Living Apart Together' (LAT) and show how non-marriage relationships involving couples living separately may nevertheless qualify as de facto relationships (See further Conlan et al., 2014; Evans, 2014; Evans et al., 2023; Hughes, 2015; Upton-Davis & Carroll, 2020; Weston & Qu, 2014)."

The truth if somebody refuses to get married on the basis of avoiding commitment they are not going to form a civil partnership, either!!
It really is no alternative solution to the my partner won't marry me issue.
The alternative to this is for individuals to decide for themselves based on facts not fairytale nonsense. If you want to get married and your partner doesn't, go find someone else. Don't have children with someone who you already know isn't into commitment. If your partner is into commitment just not married, make sure you have all the other, more onerous legalities in place- wills, no joint tenancies, insurance policies etc. Not forcing people into situations they don't want to be in because you cant even do the basic levels of research before you have children with someone and give up your life for them. Totally agree with tightening up child maintenance payments system, and possibly criminalise non payment of child support/hang a debt round their neck forever if they don't pay for their child etc.

I really hope that would be true, but by the looks of what I’ve read on the proposals, it looks like it would affect those already living together. Grossly unfair as people made their decisions based on the laws at the time.

So why do women stay and entangle themselves with a man that doesn't want what they want? Women are not forced to move in with the person they are seeing or have children with them. Women need to use their heads not their hearts and drop the need to be in a relationship at any cost.

In offering protection for some women, it exposes others to the risk of financial abuse where they currently have protection.

women don’t need access to a partners assets just for choosing to give up work or work part time. Again, more opportunity for abuse is created because a women could have a baby and refuse to go back to work. Why should a father be financially responsible for her, especially to the extent of providing a pension, when a woman may have. Mothers are fathers are responsible for their children, not each other.

My objection to this is has nothing to do with feminism it is based on the fact that the state should keep the hell out of people's personal lives.

(Unless the couple have made it the business of the state by marrying/civil partnership.)

Yes they have an obligation to make sure children are provided for. I get that.

How any woman could call herself a feminist and support this, I don't know.

Let's not forget that this is making a woman dependent on an abusive man she may wish to have nothing more to do with when she leaves him.

All this does is reduce the woman to the role of a man's property forever more.

Bet the do-gooders haven't thought of that. Twits.

The sponge-boyfriend may not have been entitled to anything … but he would have been convinced he was (egged on by his family). It would have created an extra source of stress.

Ah, good to know!

Yes. I’ve read threads on Mumsnet by women who were shocked to discover they have no right to what they’d considered were their shared assets, when their long-term partner dumped them. All he had to pay was child maintenance, same as if they had never lived together.

Some of them had been strung along by men who gave them an engagement ring but endlessly deferred the actual marriage. Others had just trusted their partner to act fairly.

It was especially hard if they had moved in with a man who was already paying a mortgage. Splitting up years later, women who had always paid their share found they had no evidence they had paid anything other than rent.

This happened to a friend of mine long ago. I hope there are better protections now in place, but I don’t know of any unless the couple have taken legal advice and signed specific documents protecting the woman’s share.

Exactly.
How many months/ years would it take and financial costs to sort it?

Nobody in their right mind who has property etc to lose is going to cohabit again. Nobody.

Jeez, according to another poster here in Australia merely being in a relationship is enough!!
Scary shit.

Maybe that's the plan: to create an even more atomised society.
Or they've all got shares in one bedroom flats.
Wonder if there's any way of finding out what those who are proposing this business interests are?
I mean it's flipping obvious why lawyers are for it.

But any "better protections" for women like your friend would be to the detriment of other women who had made a conscious choice not to share assets.

If this goes ahead, now men can string them along, move in, not work - and then get their paws on their own property and their pensions.

A much better thought out plan could allow for that. It would be a lot more complicated, and I agree that the present choice to marry or not marry works well enough, as long as women know all the facts and don’t have children, or become a SAHM, with unreliable men …..