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.

I would feel less strongly about it but it is still an attack on property rights as we know them. My personal reasons for concern are having gifted a large sum to DC for house purchase, who plans to live with gf shortly and has rented previously with a different gf, I would not want the gf to accrue rights to the property after a short period. If I were getting a grandchild, I would rather they were married anyway as I am old fashioned lol. Then in a divorce they could gain a lot but that's the risk of marriage and the child's right to stability comes first.
The politicians haven't thought it through properly. There are so many unintended consequences/complications.
Most educated people do know there is no common law marriage, many have got their heads round cgt, iht benefit of being married, arranged their affairs appropriately and Lammy wants to put a coach and horses through it and confuse everyone. Lawyers will benefit and the logical response if you an asset is to not cohabit so that will put untold pressure on housing stock. Madness

The problem is, some women are starting to out earn the men now. Where women have started refusing marriage it may be the case that they are trying to financially protect themselves by consciously not allowing a man to have legal rights to what they own.
I own my own house, have no kids. I wouldn't marry a man who didn't have a similar net worth because he would be able to claim half of everything I have worked for even though we have no children together

I think the only time I would consider marrying a man is if we had similar assets and there was going to be a child in the relationship and only then if one of us needed to go part time or something
If the rules change to be automatic for cohabitation I will have to live on my own forever it seems or risk my future financial security

It would not change my opinion.
Not one jot.
The father of the children continues to support them regardless of his marital status.
Absolutely.
Beyond that? Nothing.

In any case, there is already the ability for a bereaved cohabiting partner to make a claim off their late partner's estate if they die intestate.

No judge in their right mind would deny a grieving mother with two small children by her late partner financial support from his estate.

So why the need for more meddling?

I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure any house you own that isn't your primary residence (renting it out wouldn't count because you don't live there) is subject to capital gains when you sell, so same rules I think apply now

Again I think if you've ever own part a house, even if its via inheritance you usually lose your first time buyers status for stamp duty purposes etc. there might be a way around it, if you never own part of the house, but they pay you the cash equivalent

My husband worked away half the week when the kids were younger and had several stints of a week to a month away, so you could say he offloaded the bulk of the parenting to me. That was what his career entailed.
Now we have teens all of that effort means he can have flexibility with work - generally the higher up you go, the less presenteeism is required. He takes a brilliant share of the effort and often has been the one needed to deal with some things due to how the children each responded to us. Working from home or being able to arrange his work around their quirks has been incredibly valuable. If he had been an equal parent at first, our choices would have had to be different and he would have been less able to build his career to what it now is.

We were fairly old fashioned in that we only started to live together once a wedding was planned. We have always baked in financial independence to our relationship so if anything were to happen to him, new rules around finance and co-habiting would make me financially vulnerable.

Responding to wrong post. Sorry.

Older people who have their own children and meet later in life may want to protect their assets for their children's inheritance, they can do this currently just by not marrying their partner. This law would mean older people potentially having to live apart or risk their children's inheritance
I am in this position but after 25yrs don't want to LTB! Trying to keep up with the official updates and, atm, for people like us, a will would still trump any new legislation. Let's see.....

For me, not really. As I said (I think on this thread, teach me not to read so many threads simultaneously), it's the general principle that people ought not have legal and/or financial obligations imposed upon them without explicit informed consent.

I think it's one of those well meaning laws that may help a few people, but throw a grenade into many other people's currently happy relationships. I imagine a will could override the asset split in the event of death, but what about if you split up for some reason? Would you need them to sign something to say they won't come after your money in the event of a break up. What if they don't want to sign it, is the 3 years backdated from the point the law comes into place?

It wouldn’t really change my view. I think it’s about choice. The state shouldn’t be essentially forcing people to give up rights over their assets if they want to live with someone.

If you cohabit but don’t want to marry you can already arrange your property any way you like. You can jointly own your house or own it in any other ratio you choose, you can leave property to a partner in a will and hold joint savings. The issue seems to be that some women don’t understand that by cohabiting without marrying they don’t automatically gain rights to their partner’s property but that is an education issue. We don’t generally protect people from not understanding the law in this way.

I feel that women in the UK are now as educated as men; they actually slightly out earn men early in their careers; we have maternity rights; anti-discrimination law; some free childcare. No one needs to completely give up their financial independence to have children. If a woman chooses to give up work to be a SAHM that’s fine but I think it’s for the woman to protect herself from that risk by marrying or having assets in her name etc. If the man doesn’t want to do that then don’t have to have children with them, or continue to work or take the risk knowing it’s a risk.

The government seems to exclusively be focusing on a situation where a couple have been cohabiting for 20 years. The woman gave up work. Has no assets in her name but believed she had some entitlement to her partner’s assets. But that’s one situation of many and is actually a very old fashioned way of thinking about relationships.

For anyone with children from another relationship (bearing in mind that 25% of children are raised by a single parent) those children are potentially deprioritised by these proposals. I would personally never put my children in a situation where they could lose their house to my new partner. And of course there’s a gamble because you could “win” from these proposals if you cohabit with someone wealthier. But I would far rather rely on my own ability to provide for my children than someone else’s - people’s circumstances can change; you can’t control their actions and the court process is extremely uncertain.

100% agree with this. I'm a child-free woman.

To me, marriage is a contract that says - if we split, you can have [half] my stuff. If I split from a romantic partner, I don't want to give him half my stuff. Also, I want to be able to leave a relationship if I'm no longer happy. This isn't "for better or worse, till death..." if you treat me like shit, I'm off. Hence, I will not be getting married. This is my personal choice.

The other annoying thing about this proposal is that it introduces the very risks and legal complications of marriage that many unmarried cohabiting couples are trying to avoid, without the inheritance tax benefit.

Exactly how I feel
I've only had one relationship where he lived in my house. I was very fair with him financially, he didn't contribute to the mortgage, I paid for any maintenance, repairs, appliances, improvements, mortgage and he was able to live cheaply in my house while I shouldered the burden of most things. He was able to save despite earning less than me. He decided he didn't love me anymore, that's fine, he can leave, he had savings to move on. He went back and lived with his mother for a while, he did ask to come back after a few weeks. No thanks. I think he realised that he couldn't even live in a house share for how much he was paying to live with me and don't think he was enjoying being back home with his mom.

Now if that situation played out in the event of this proposed law passing. He would not only have taken his savings with him, but he could also ask for a good chunk of my equity in my house, despite sacrificing absolutely nothing for it. I would have had to remortgage the house to give him his share and frankly I would've probably had to sell it eventually as I don't think I would have afforded the increased mortgage.

He now lives with another woman in her house, where he could have repeated the same thing again. Cocklodging could turn into a career opportunity for some men. Move in with a woman who owns her own house for 3 years, split up, take half the assets, move on. I imagine as long as they spend the money they got from the previous partner before they split with the next, they would be seen to have a need for the claim on the partners assets. Just insane

I was financially abused and trapped for years, it took me 7 years to sneak money away so that I could leave. This could have kept me there even longer.

Can you explain what you mean? How would it have kept you there longer? Labour is claiming this change would help those suffering during domestic abuse. Did you own the house rather than being a cohabitee with no asset?

I would imagine any man abusing his partner thinking a woman may potentially leave and take his assets is more likely to step up the abuse and keep a tighter reign on her finances etc to stop her

I can see this from both sides.
On the one hand, women whose abusive boyfriends tell them "having children is the same as being married" and refuse to tie the knot, wouldn't be able to leave them without somewhere to live.
But on the other hand, older couples who both have assets would find it hard to protect them (and the one who had fewer assets would have no incentive to agree that they are just a bidie-in and not a spouse).

I don't know this woman's personal circumstances, but there are many examples in this thread.

For one, the proposal assumes an abusive man has money or assets. But a whole bunch don't.

So, this new proposal creates an additional burden for any woman with such a man. If a woman who has experienced abuse owns a house, walking away from the abusive relationship means risking that house. Ditto with pensions and savings.

I also expect there are a bunch of women in abusive relationships today who have assets- will their abusive partner agree to "opt out" of this law when the time comes? I think not. So it risks transferring assets to an abuser.

As PP have said, this law risks replacing one form of vulnerability with another. The thread also shows a bunch of better alternatives (e.g. more child maintenance, more punishment to child maintenance avoidants, child maintenance being based off assets as well as employment income etc, better punishment and remediation for financial abuse) to the specific issue this law is claiming to be a solution for.

But women who are choosing to have children with men unmarried where they are the financially vulnerable partner, are making a choice to do it regardless of the lack of financial security. They could choose to refuse to have children until married or the government could look at child maintenance rules. Stop men from dropping their well paying employee job, going self employed and declaring minimal income to lower their contributions for example. I think in some states of America, that would be seen as deliberately reducing your own income and therefore they ignore the change and charge at the previous amount calculated when employed and if you don't pay, they can take your driving licence, your passport etc to enforce it.
But this blanket rule for cohabiting couples would harm many who have already made a conscious choice not to merge finances and it is unfair to impose this law on to them

I think this is a terrible idea. It imposes the responsibilities of a legal contract on people whether they want that or not. There is no way to live with somebody yet opt out.

Those women should not be having children with those men.

Not mine. It still imposes a legal contract on somebody without their consent.

Yeah, that's definitely the answer. And what about the children who are now here??
I do agree with @Cherriesandapples1 that something needs to happen about men who don't pay for their children but for many co-habiting mums, it's the house that is the biggest loss.
Maybe some presumption (as with married couples) that the house will stay with whoever is having the DCs more than half the time, rather than with whichever adult moved in first. For houses that are outright owned by the parent with less time with the DCs, this could be tricky, but childcare of joint children (or "children of the family", so he can't just move in a live in nanny/girlfriend for his kids and then not provide a house) should count towards paying the mortgage or the rent automatically, rather than having to be proved endlessly/whoever is on the rental agreement getting the place etc.

They can get married. But what shouldn’t happen is every cohabiting couple is forced in legal contracts against their will because some women made poor choices when selecting a partner and procreating.

Thanks, I was more thinking from the point of view of the partner who doesn't own the rented out house. So at the moment if I have a boyfriend who owns his own house and I own mine, and we decide to move in together into my home, he doesn't get any part of my house and I don't have any part of his. They are still separate and him renting it out wouldn't affect me from any kind of owning that asset point of view. If we split up, he could go back to living in his own house while I carried on living in mine.
However, once we'd lived together three years, would we suddenly become joint owners of both houses and become jointly considered to have a second home?

I'll take it from the abusive ex.

1 girlfriend. Disappeared whilst he was out. They were supposed to be buying a house together, having lived together, she was giving up her job and moving and had therefore sold her flat earlier that year. Something happened (it'll be violence, sexual and other). Never saw or heard of her again. He was in debt, mostly for cars, motorbikes, cannabis, beer and steroids despite a reasonable income, and homeless afterwards so it definitely wasn't the alternative explanation.

As it was, she could just take her money from the sale of her flat and go, probably to family, might have been overseas. Doesn't matter where, she could go without telling him where or giving him any warning - she could just up and run.

Change the law and that abusive bastard would have been able to drag her through expensive legal action, get half her flat value, half her savings, half her pension, half her car and he'd have known where she went to/been able to compel her to coming back within range. For not wanting to tell the police and go through a failed prosecution for whatever he did to her - and with that law change, it would clearly be used as a defence 'she's only saying that to deny me my legal 50%', so even less likely to get to that point in the first place than now.

You do not stop financial abuse, domestic violence and coercive control by giving abusers new and exciting ways in which to have the right to track down their exes and extract more out of them than before.