Does marriage make any difference

[MoreTeaPenguin]

I have been with my partner for years, have 2 children, never felt the need to marry. But every now and then a thread pops up saying an unmarried partner can be in a precarious financial position especially if they stay home to look after kids. So I thought I'd post to ask what the facts are!

The house is owned as joint tenants (I think that's what it's called, it's the one where if you die the other person gets the house). We both have wills leaving everything to each other. All income goes to the joint account (which I manage). We each take an allowance each month from the joint account to our personal accounts to pay for gadgets and treats etc. I'm currently on my second lot of maternity leave, and will then return to work two days a week. If I worked full time I would earn roughly the same as my partner. My career progression has suffered somewhat from going part time.

We have no critical illness insurance or insurance to cover losing job as it seems expensive, and jobs are not too hard to come by in our field. The mortgage would be paid off by a decreasing term assurance (think that's the name) if one of us dies.

Would anything legal change significantly if we were to marry? Is there anything we have forgotten to make sure we're both OK in the event of death, separation etc?

Thank you for any advice!

Are you each other's next of kin?
Is your estate likely to be worth more than the inheritance tax threshold?

There was a long and detailed thread recently which thrashed it all out in some considerable detail here.

I've pasted Chunderella's excellent summary of the major issues below.

"I have zero interest in convincing you to get married OP, but what I do care about is that you know there are some protections offered by marriage that you can't get in any other way. Because only when you know what these are can you decide whether they're relevant to you and your partner. A lot can be taken care of with good wills and a NOK form, whch you absolutely must do if you're not going to get wed, but it can't all be.

1. Each person gets an inheritance tax exemption allowance, currently 325k. If one spouse doesn't use all theirs, the survivor can have the unused amount. This tends to be most useful when the home is worth more than 325k and less than 750k. Unmarried partners cannot use each other's unused allowance. there are people who have ended up having to sell the shared home after one partner dies, in order to pay the IHT bill. It happens. It may be possible to hold assets in trust to get around this, but it isn't watertight like the statutory right to use your spouse's unused allowance. HMRC don't challenge spousal exemptions, they sometimes challenge trusts. If you think this isn't relevant to you because you have too few assets, great, but do keep an eye on both your own net worth and the threshold!

1. If widowed with a child under 18, you can claim widowed parents allowance. You can't if you weren't married. This is about £105 a week. Only you can decide whether finances are such that this is worth doing.

1. If one of you isn't British and/or you intend to live elsewhere in the world, it will be much more straightforward to be married than not. it is boatloads easier to demonstrate to immigration authorities that you are married than that you are cohabiting (I am an immigration solicitor so believe me I know!). Sometimes an unmarried partnership doesn't even qualify, for immigration purposes, unless you've lived together a certain time. There is no such restriction with married couples. Also, there are some countries that won't allow you to live together there unless you're married.

1. If a married couple divorce and one of them is significantly worse off than the other, they may be able to claim spousal maintenance. Particularly if the poorer spouse has limited their own earnings in order to care for children, or to spend time building up a family business. This is not possible if the couple were not married. Whether you think this is a good thing or not depends on your individual circumstances.

1. A lot of the protections you would have are statutory, rather than voluntary as they would be if unmarried. For example, unmarried couples could make joint wills specifying the wish to provide for each other in the event of death. but there's nothing to stop one party unilaterally changing it. It is possible to challenge wills, but is an extremely expensive process and if you can't prove you've been cohabiting for at least two years, not an easy one either.

If any of those things are particularly important to you, you need to be damn sure that not getting married is even more important."

That is a very helpful summary, thank you!