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.

This leaves vulnerable people open to abuse and being swindled. Don't like this idea at all although more open to it where children are concerned. Unmarried couples can make their financial decisions via their wills. Also as an opt-out where both people need to sign, again this is dangerous for vulnerable people who may be already experiencing financial abuse. I can't see how this would be properly safeguarded. As for proof of if the person is a lodger or partner I suppose things like photographs, booking holidays together, Valentines day cards, voice messages, or even things like relationship status listed on social media could be some form of 'proof'.

And not only is there marriage as an option, there is also civil partnership now. I chose not to marry as I don’t like the connotations. I might have chosen civil partnership had it been available to opposite sex couples at the time.

All of those things are very easy to fake. Hardly anyone puts their relationship on social media these days.

Exactly this & ensuring you protect your assets if things are unequal e.g If one of you put down a £50k deposit on a house.

I wouldn’t want this at all. Unless there was a fail safe opt out it would effectively preclude me from living with a partner again. I have two children and would never jeopardise their financial security by sharing my major assets with a partner. I would be completely upfront about that with my partner. But if this did come in it would take away that choice. I would also never risk my children’s inheritance being diverted from them.

I would worry that an opt out might be challenged or eroded in some way or treated like a pre-nup (which aren’t always followed).

I lived with a boyfriend as a student for convenience but wouldn’t have wanted to share assets with him (not that I had any at the time).

And you would get loads of tricky situations - two housemates live together, they have a one night stand which results in a pregnancy, they each then potentially have a claim against each other.

It could put those who already live together in a very difficult position if they had relied on being treated as being financially independent.

Essentially I feel that there is already an option for those who want to share finances (marriage or civil partnership).

What are the connotations of marriage you dont like?

For those saying it’ll never happen and is unworkable, it does already happen elsewhere, most notably Australia

Also i wonder how this would work out in situations where one or both partners are married to other people but are now in a cohabiting relationship with someone else? Which one takes priority if there's no divorce?

I hate the idea that you could effectively be married without your consent! It is definitely something you should do knowingly. I'm married but I did it knowingly and on purpose.

I think Canada also has a few protections in place for cohabiting couples. Not that I know exactly what they are.

That is a good point. I used to live with a boyfriend who was still married to his ex (court would not grant a divorce despite them both wanting out... they had to wait 2 years).

It’s mad that it would be automatically enforced without consent if people weren’t aware that they had to or could opt out. Would it be retrospectively applied, as in, would it mean that me and my partner would need to opt out otherwise it would become immediately applicable to us?? Or would it be for new relationships only once the law was brought in?

I wonder if this is being floated due to the growing number of couples who may have religious Islamic marriages, but didn’t have the formal marriage ceremony that would be recognised under UK law. I can see how women from those communities may be disadvantaged in the event of a divorce without the protections a legal marriage brings.

The whole point of choosing not to marry is to protect your assets.

We should educate on what marriage means and what different official documents mean and have an easy access to make those documents.

There are reasons not to get married. Couples would just need to live apart from each other.

This is so, so important.

The whole point of the marriage ceremony is confirming that both parties consent to the contract.

Under this awful suggested system, there's no verification of consent at all. Anyone could squat in a vulnerable person's house and then inherit their stuff. It's terrifying. Just no.

Marriage shouldn't require a formal ceremony. Just a registrar confirming that you understand what you're signing, then you sign it, and witnesses sign that they saw you sign it.

This is so much more important than almost anything and yet look at all the paperwork you get when you just buy a car. And they're saying people can effectively accidentally get married without any paperwork at all?

Once again David Lammy, no thank you.

Many people don’t understand the legal protections of marriage/civil partnership ‘it’s just a bit of paper’.

i reneged being told I’d be ok as a ‘common law’ partner before I married my husband. There is no legal recognition of common law.

It's true that women disproportionately get shafted financially after having kids. It is, by and large, financially unwise for a woman to have kids without getting married first.

But this proposed solution is awful.

Much much better for the govt to hand out educational material about what marriage contracts actually are, and people should promote the idea of doing a "legal only" wedding ie no expensive party, before having kids.

Instead "liberal" culture has tried to paint marriage as a stuffy outdated tradition, leading to (mostly) women getting shafted.

This is an absolutely terrible idea! It won't help the housing crisis either. If anything happened to DH I would never remarry as I'd want every penny of our assets going to our DC. So this would mean I'd never be able to live with anyone either.

And yes, as pp have said it would be soooo open to abuse, with people seeking out lonely or vulnerable older people with assets and moving in.

Awful, awful idea. There are perfectly good ways to protect people you want financially already (ie marriage or civil partnership). 3 years is nothing.

This comes up every so often on MN. It's an interesting idea, but seems if you want both partners to agree to sharing assets then they should sign some sort of contract that acknowledges that.... which already exists.

Also surely if this is a genuine problem that needs fixing, the priority would be making the Child Support agency fit for purpose.

I can maybe see an argument for it if there are shared children involved and one has lost out financially due to raising a family, with income, career, pensions etc. Although in this situation I do think people (women) should be aware of this before having children and get married first to avoid being shafted.

But anything else, no.

Far better to have a campaign highlighting the non existence of common law marriage, and also overhauling child maintenance so that absent fathers actually pay for their children.

Yes, I don't understand why the people who choose not to marry but think they effectively are married anyway can't be expected to know the implications of their choice; yet those who have chosen not to marry because they do not want to be married (for whatever reasons) CAN be expected to know that they must opt out.

At the risk of sounding flippant, it reminds me of the old Britannia Music Club - whereby you would receive the company's choice of CD each month (and then be forced to pay for it, of course), unless you specifically told them that you didn't want it.

How can we ever criticise what we perceive as 'backward' customs and laws in less 'progressive' countries if we ourselves decide to legalise automatic forced marriage?

I could see this creating a huge problem of elderly abuse. So someone is their live in carer of a wealthy elderly person and then after 3 years...voila they can claim assets. Scary!

Who could prove what the relationship is? How would they define cohabitation?