Legal protection for unmarried SAHMs

[lilyaldrin]

Basically, what do I need to do to confer the same financial/legal protection as marriage would?

We have joint children and although we don't currently own property together, we hope to in the next few years.

First thing I'm tackling is wills leaving everything to each other. What next?

[SatinSandals]

My solicitor said that she was responsible for 7 couples marrying this year, once she has explained everything in detail marriage is much the easiest option.

[SatinSandals]

I still think that once you have made your list in here you will have missed something that you will only find out about in a crisis, rather like the small print in travel insurance. If you don't marry you need a solicitor going over it with a 'fine tooth comb'.

[FeisMom]

No amount of legal paperwork - apart from a marriage certificate can give you:

• Widowed parents allowance
• Spousal maintenance

One way or another your relationship will end, either in death or by splitting up, as a SAHP one of the above will make a huge difference to your situation at a devastating time.

[FeisMom]

Do either of you have children separately or have been previously married?

If your DP has an ex-wife or adult children, they or his parents would be legal NoK, able to banish you from his hospital bedside, or even force the sale of your home to get their inheritance.

[SatinSandals]

Number one is just such a point that you might miss, especially helpful to me- I only discovered it last year when making wills.
The other thing is- make sure DP doesn't have an accident when abroad.

[lilyaldrin]

Thanks Chunderella, very informative.

[OrlandoWoolf]

Maybe the Government should look at ways of protecting people in relationships who are not married. I think the issues are pensions, next of kin,inheritance, children etc. Granted being married helps with these but many people are in relationships with children and are not married.

Just saying get married is not helpful if you do not want to get married.

[FeisMom]

Orlando, but why would the government want to put in place a system to protect people, when the system already exists? That is what marriage is, legal, societal and financial commitment.

It's like saying, I want a system that will give me free at point of service health care, access to a Doctor, hospital and emergency care, but I don't want to use the NHS.

[friday16]

Just saying get married is not helpful if you do not want to get married.

Unless you're five years old, stamping your foot and demanding that you be treated differently because you're special is never a good look.

How would these things that protect pensions, housing, tax affairs, next of kin issues and children, but are not marriages, differ from marriages? After all, we pandered to bigots by inventing the entirely artificial "civil partnerships" which are marriages in all but name, and if someone very carefully refuses to refer to a couple who have one as "marriage" you can be pretty sure they're a con-evo with ishooes.

If you want those protections, put on your jeans, nip to the register office, sign the paperwork and leave. It'll cost fifty quid, and you don't need to tell anyone. How does this differ from some parallel "marriage in all but name" arrangement, other than appeasing a few people who are still living in 1975 and think cohabitation makes them dangerous radicals?

[OrlandoWoolf]

I think the biggest issue is how many people in long term relationships are unaware of what could happen if one of them dies etc and then they are left in real problems such as have been explained on here.

People are obviously aware of the NHS etc. But how many people in a co-habiting relationship truly understand the implications of it?

[IrnBruTheNoo]

"It is much cheaper to get married, you can just pop to the registry office and find 2 witnesses. A solicitor charges a lot."

So true!

[gindrinker]

Marriage is just a contract.
You dont need a white dress or guests or anything. Sign the paperwork get the benefits.

My mum got married to my dad because he'd got a job abroad and she couldn't go with him unless they were married.

I say this as a childless unmarried cohabitee. But I'm never going to have a baby without a marriage certificate and I might get married for the next of kin benefits when I get older.

[emsyj]

It is not correct that there is no IHT payable if you own as joint tenants. The estate that you can will to others is NOT the same as the value of the estate that IHT is assessable on. If you are not married and you own the house as joint tenants, if one of you dies the other will automatically inherit the deceased's share BUT that does NOT mean the value of that share does not form part of the estate for IHT purposes. It does.

Not making any other comments other than to say - you cannot replicate the legal position of a spouse, however much money you throw at it and however good a lawyer you hire. Also be aware that your partner could change his will at any time and you would never know.

[OrlandoWoolf]

"But I'm never going to have a baby without a marriage certificate and I might get married for the next of kin benefits when I get older."

Life can get in the way. What if you become pregnant and your DP does not want to get married?

[friday16]

it really isn't fair that gay people are going to be able to choose marriage or CP whereas straight couples will have fewer options

The whole thing's a mess because Gordon Brown was a coward (in this as in so many other things). The right solution was to simply extend marriage to same-sex couples. And indeed, that's what's now happening. All the predictions of parliamentary chaos were completely unfounded. The Church of England folded before the first hand was dealt, a few noisy shire-county bigots made speeches of quite startling unpleasantness which I'm sure they'll regret in the fullness of time, and...what? Anglican Mainstream and their ilk were left at the side of the road when they found that no only did no-one think them worth agreeing with, no-one even found them worth listening to.

We could have solved this issue straightforwardly by a simple piece of legislation. Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 is such a simple piece of legislation, because all the talk from bigots about how it would involve amending two million pieces of legislation was, as you'd predict, nonsense. Instead, because Brown was a moral coward, we got the stupidity of a special "almost but not quite" class of marriage, designed to appease the major force that is the Church of England. Five years later, Cameron quite properly told Welby to get stuffed, and Welby realised that he had no support at all.

How many Civil Partnerships will be enacted once Same-Sex Marriage is available? For practical purposes, none. I suspect the legislation will be allowed to wither, rather than be repealed, but the only people who seriously advanced extended Civil Partnerships to opposite-sex couples were people trying to use it as a wrecking amendment for SSM.

[ElfontheShelfIsWATCHINGYOUTOO]

Agree strongly with all the other posters.

If you are concerned about this sort of thing, then you really should get married, you do not have to do it in the romantic sense but purely as a legal thing, as you will be doing anyway but going the long and complicated and expensive way round it.

I say this because I have seen too many non married friends now in punary struggling with no financial help, no stability when they have been the bedrock of the relationship and sacrificed their own careers for the husbands and the children. Now they have nothing.

I also say this as someone who knows how wide open the law can be, and how open to interpretation it can be when any other parties come into the equation or any sightly confusing things happen.

Its imperative you tie things down as firmly as you can and the ultimate way to do that, is through marriage.

[sashh]

in the case that I died, what say would my parents have over the children? Surely it would just be up to their father?

I have no idea whether that's true or not, but if I were in your position I would find out and not assume.

[NotCitrus]

Marriage is just a contract - with the government, where the government can change the terms at any point without nullifying the contract, and where the contract can't be amended to suit your individual circumstances.

In any other circs, it's the sort of unfair contract consumer columns would be warning people to steer well clear of. Unfortunately it's the only contract available that provides the benefits listed upthread.

For reference, MrNC and I were together for a decade, then decided to get married one afternoon without telling anyone - though we ended up letting our parents come and take us out for a meal after, and I had to tell a senior guy at work as it was the only way to get him off the phone so I could leg it to the registry office!

[gindrinker]

Orlando - if he wouldn't marry me for the legal protection. I'd probably walk away.
Ive also got to 30 without even a pregnancy scare let alone a pregnancy. The chances of this are slim to nil.

[passedgo]

And since these vague half-baked ideas of changing the cohabitation rules have been being discussed by vague governments I have put off my decision to get married and am now 10 years further down the line with 10 years less pension rights. It is the most pathetic bits of vagueness I have ever seen in recent years from government. All driven by fear of damnation from the Archbishop of Canterbury, when quite frankly, who pays my pension and who looks after our children has absolutely nothing to do with him or anyone else. It is a private contract. Feeble excuse to oppress women I think, less about fear of gay marriage.