Labour and common law marriage pledge

[SlamPunked]

I heard about this today, and I'm keen to know what non-married childfree people think of it? Especially how it applies to childfree people.

It's essentially a pledge from Labour to give cohabiting couples similar rights on separation to married couples. The pledge lacks details, but there are models in other countries that could be followed.

Obviously I understand the benefits for many individuals (people with children, people who are victims of abuse). However, I (40W) have purposefully decided not to marry my partner (55M) to protect my assets (been together over 10 years).

We both came to the relationship with nothing apart from debt. But now I have a really well-paid job that has allowed us both to pay off our debts and buy a house (get a mortgage) as equal owners.

But I earn a lot more than him (4x his salary) and save a lot of money in my pension. He tends to waste his money on clothes and hobbies, and has no pension to speak of. Day-to-day I cover bills, holidays etc, he pays for food and trips to the pub. If we break up (you never know what the future holds), I don't want him to have a claim on my pension too when I've already been bankrolling him for many years.

It isn't clear what a reform would do exactly, but it also feels a bit unfair in my case. If I wanted him to have a claim on my savings, I would have married him.

I would love others' perspectives, especially for how it applies to childfree people. Maybe I'm just being an arse, but when I read about the pledge I automatically thought "oh no". The pledge is pitched as something to help women who have sacrificed their career for children. But what about career women who have climbed the ladder, and have a lower earning partner? I'm not saying I want the former to suffer for my sake, instead I'm asking for nuance in how it's applied.

I think it’s a daft idea.
Either get married or don’t.
I agree completely with another poster who said sort out child maintenance, that’s the real issue.
Force absent parents to take responsibility for their own children, that’s what needed. Oh and that applies to married absent parents too.

Scotland already has the Family Law (Scotland) Act 2006.

The below is from Thorntons Solicitors and, I think, shows how intrusive the whole thing can be.

"What is cohabiting?

"Cohabitants are a man and woman who are or were living together as if they were husband and wife, or two persons of the same sex who are or were living together as if they were civil partners. The Court has a wide discretion to determine whether or not a couple can be classed as cohabitants. This is ultimately a matter of fact and the court will take into account a number of matters; including the length of time they lived together, the nature of their relationship and whether they had any shared finances during the time they lived together.

"In looking at the nature of the relationship, the court will look at whether the couple were generally recognised as being a couple by their friends/family/colleagues (as opposed to flat mates, for example) and also the sexual relations and emotional support which existed between them.

"There is no fixed period before a couple can be recognised as cohabiting. A very short period of living together may not be enough, but the longer the relationship goes on, the more likely it is that they will be recognised as cohabitants."

Without wanting to derail or re-open old threads, look at pension age changes and how many women have claimed that they never received any letters, never saw anything online, never saw anything on TV, never noticed billboards

See also 'well no-one told ME I had to have ID to vote.'

Quite. How many pairs of people who live together completely non-romantically as friends could get caught up in this too?

How will the government know for sure that they're purely pals/housemates and not a 'couple' - put 24/7cameras in their bedrooms and bugs in the house to listen to all conversations to check for any signs of romantic affection?

That’s because they haven’t bothered to find out. When I bought a house, or rented or bought a car, or sent my child to school, started a new job etc I have looked into my rights and responsibilities

And it can also be because they don't want actual knowledge to trump belief. I had a row with a colleague over the term' common law marriage' because she refused point blank to believe there was no such thing. I showed her legal sites on the internet saying there was no such thing - nope, she knew better and it was definitely a right unmarried couples had. She believed it existed and didn't want to alter that belief.

It already applies, in part, to less well off people: if you're disabled and live with a partner (unmarried), your partner is expected to support you financially and you're entitled to fewer disability benefits, if you're living with a partner your unemployment benefits are similarly affected.

If you're unmarried but cohabiting, you're expected to pay your partner's living expenses if they're out of work or become unwell, though as this isn't legally enforced it puts the less well-off partner in a vulnerable position (as does being married).

That Scotland family law sounds like the old 'cohabitation by habit and repute.'

Yes, very much so.

See also people who constantly use the phrase "Well, I would have thought that..." as a way of declaring their opinions and beliefs as 'facts' without actually troubling themselves with actual facts.

Ignorance of the law used to be no excuse. Now it's all tilt head and let's be understanding then on top of that we'll put things in place so the ignorant are completely protected and can get away, time after time, with 'but I didn't know, wasn't told' etc, thus absolving them of any personal responsibility.

Now, when we have more easy and free access to Information than we've ever had.

Think more about this, this is just Labour saying ‘we don’t believe women can inform themselves well enough to enter a cohabiting relationship and understand the risk posed to them and any future children (have added children because people keep saying this law is to protect children) so we have to step in and protect them. They aren’t capable of doing this for themselves’

I don’t think people understand the full implication of treating women like there’s no possibility of them educating themselves or understanding the outcome. If Labour believed women could be educated to understand this, they would be doing an education piece. Rather than trying to take rights away from other groups of people.

Do women really want to viewed like this? What about the million other decisions we make for ourselves every day. Can we be trusted to make those without a law in place to dictate it?

Raises so many questions, do you have to be co-habiting? And for how long? What if the other partner denies you were in a relationship? How do you prove you were co-habiting? And for how long?

Could I move in with someone today and walk off with half their assets next week? Rinse and repeat.

Now, when we have more easy and free access to Information than we've ever had

An ironic and unintended effect of the internet; with all this access to information, some people are actually getting stupider.

I’ve not RTFT, but there was a thread on here a few weeks ago about if you were voting on one issue, what would it be. For me it’s this.

There should not be any legal rights for cohabiting partners. If you want legal rights, make a choice and get married. I’m okay if they come up with some sort of legal process that isn’t marriage but it is something you have to legally file and have witnessed.

It should not be possible to assume rights by simply cohabiting. You should be able to choose to opt in to the implications of marriage, not have it foisted upon you by circumstance.

If this is Labour policy in their manifesto I will not be voting for them.

ETA: I am a married, childless higher earner. I am happy to share my earnings with DH, that is a decision I made and acted on. If I were ever in another relationship, I might make different decisions and that shouldn’t impact whether or not I choose to live with my partner.

It already happens with alcohol limits in pregnancy - some women can't be trusted not to drink to excess, so let's slap limits on ALL women because none of them can be trusted.

This is just another version. Some women can't be trusted to make informed decisions over cohabiting (which judging by some posts on this site is a fair conclusion) so we'll introduce complicated and intrusive legislation to cover all relationships.

They always pull out the 'but what about the children' card, but there is already a simple established biological way to (supposedly) commit you to being responsible for any child that you have.

That's entirely different from any commitment that you may or may not choose to form with another adult.

I know several people with children from previous relationships who specifically don’t want to get married to their new cohabiting partners to protect the kid’s inheritance. So this law could also easily screw over some children….

How would bigamy be avoided? 2 examples from people I know.
It took my aunt’s partner 5 years to finalise his divorce, the last 3 of which he was already living with my aunt. My aunt was aware but if he had been a prick and not told her he’s still legally married she might have thought she has legal protections under this law while in reality she doesn’t.
Second example - my friend’s dad was a lorry driver. On his death they found out he had another secret family in the next town over. Neither family knew they weren’t the only ones. How would this law work here, because he was equally living with both women part time?

This is the second reason I'm not voting labour.
I'm unhappy it's even being thought of.
I own my house outright, no mortgage. To have to give half to my long term DP would ruin me. I'd have to get a mortgage to pay him off. And at my age that's not likely. Or worse, I'd have to sell to give him his share. It doesnt bare thinking about.

So if it came into being, I'd have no choice but to make him leave.

Apparently in Australia you're common law once you've lived together for two years.

No. If you want the same rights. Get married.

Stop trying to diminish marriage.

@Chersfrozenface that's interesting. I wonder if everyone co-habiting would agree with "the court"'s assessment of whether they're in a cohabiting relationship or not?

If the purpose of this is to ensure that children aren’t left in poverty, why don’t they have a system like in the US where not paying child support leads to garnished wages or criminal sanctions?

I’ve been single forever so this probably won’t ever affect me but I don’t like it when policies are applied to “woman as mother” with no consideration for women who aren’t mothers.

For a long time I've wanted to be in connecting houses. Like helena bonham Carter did.

I read it in a book years ago and it really appealed to me. The best of both worlds sort of.
Anyway, soz for the derail,

I can see short term air bnb rocketing. Have a month away from your partner and reset the two year clock. Only £999.

Sounds quite appealing.

Well that's another thing.

How would the law deal with breaks? You're judged to be cohabitees if you've lived together for X years in the last X years?

Could you maybe change your Facebook status to "on a break" to reset the clock?
Of course this also means we have to be far more explicit to the men:women we date -NO I DO NOT WANT TO BE ENTANGLED TO YOU!

Rather than just not getting married..

It's interesting how, as part of his campaign to 'support marriage', David Cameron brought in the marriage allowance, whereby one spouse who earns nothing (or under the tax-free earnings threshold) can transfer their unused allowance to their spouse.

This wasn't especially well publicised at the time - certainly not nowadays - and I'm sure there must be loads of people who are entitled to it who don't know about it and thus haven't claimed and don't get it.

So, considering HMRC know everybody's earnings and could cross-reference this with marriage records, this would be a very easy thing to pay out automatically... but they don't do that; you have to claim it.

I wonder why they don't 'interfere' there and make sure that qualifying people are automatically better off? It could be a win-win for everybody, because if you don't qualify, nothing would change anyway; but if you do, that's a few quid extra to support children whose parents are married - not including those who aren't, but the government reckon sort of effectively are anyway.