Married v's unmarried if one person dies.

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Are there any benefits legally to be married if one of you dies? Just wondering....

Of course there are. I can’t believe you would even ask this. When you are married your finances are viewed as joint. Unmarried and you have no rights whatsoever.

Anyone???

It depends on whether there is a will or not but certainly yes there are. For example property etc would automatically be yours

Yes. Property. Right to decide how other half is buried and where. Widows benefits if you have children. You have no rights if you're not married.

That's why people get married
As a spouse I am entitled to the whole house if Dh dies, plus his pension and I then own everything he did
It's possible to do that in a will I suppose but partners are not automatically entitled in the same way as a spouse
Partners could find themselves penniless and homeless if things go wrong

Yes. Before death you have a say in treatment - as unmarried you could be disregarded if e.g loved one was on life support.
After death you have more inheritance rights, inherit up to I think 350k tax free, pension rights. It's sensible to get married if you're joined financially, even if you think it's a silly institution. It's basically like opting in to an insurance policy.
Especially if one of you works and the other stays home with kids.
It's grim but marriage is most useful if you break up or one dies.

Single you have no protection under the matrimonial homes act. Unless you are on the land registry or there is a deed of trust you have no rights to any property owned by your partner. Upon death, unless there is a will you have no rights to any property with the exception of if there is a child of the relationship they may have a claim because they are dependant but any child may be able to inherit under intestacy rules anyway. There is an advantage under inheritance tax as well. If you are married, you have double the exemption. If married you can gift property and money and shares etc without any tax liability. If married your partner automatically has parental responsibility.
There are probably a few other things too.
People get confused about owning something jointly with another person, such as owning a property as joint tenants or a joint bank account. In those cases the property or money passes outside the will and is inherited by the other joint owner. The exception is holding property as tenants in common.

Hope this helps.

Ah...interesting...certainly food for thought...

Unmarried you are not next of kin and could end up have no say or even able to attend a funeral - I know someone this happened to.

Good grief!!

Married and Property passes automatically to married spouse without inheritance taxation , unmarried it may need to be willed to pass to partner but would be subject to inheritance tax being chargeable
Next of kin rights over medical treatment and beyond

There was a thread on MN a few months ago about the protection of marriage, after reading the comments I decided that I needed to protect myself so we looked into it and got married with just us and the DC's.

If you are unmarried and the father is not on the children's birth certificates and the mother dies, the father will need to go to court to get PR and residency of HIS OWN children.

If other parties also apply to the court for OR and / or residency then the court will decide the outcome.

Even if the father gets PR and / or residency he may find that it costs a lot of money and takes an emotional toll on both him and his children.

I am divorced. My partner has had so.e health problems and want to get his financial affairs in order.

If I 're marry then does this mean my ds biological father can stop his maintenance for the children???

Sorry. Phone keyboard keeps sticking!!

I'm a will writer and sometimes wonder how many weddings have taken place over the years purely because I've told my clients the advantages of getting married - I reckon at least a hundred!

OP no, remarriage does not mean that your child's father can stop paying maintenance.

"If I 're marry then does this mean my ds biological father can stop his maintenance for the children???"

No. But as with any other major change to circumstances he could request that it be re-assessed. But the basic principle that you support your DC remains, irrespective of wealth or otherwise, of their other parent, and the govt will attempt to enforce a minimum level

If its just child maintenance no

If it includes an element of spousal maintenance to you yes that would stop on marriage

I see. No spousal maintenance, just child maintenance.

Thank you all. This has been really useful.

Just to say that when dh died suddenly, life was made much less awful because we were married. In particular, DH's bank were happy just to close his accounts and move everything over to me within a week. This actually isn't always the case (if we'd had more money or had not banked at the same bank things might have been more complicated) but it's a major barrier removed. It really helps to have an active joint account as well. Likewise, dh's main pension just wanted one short form then transferred the money into my account. One other pension put more obstacles in the way but it wasn't too bad.

I would say being married is the one way make life easier in that scenario.
When I had my child, my then bf died in an accident at work. Being a young man he had only really just started to think about pensions etc and had joined his scheme but without filling out the expression of wish form,the scheme decided the money was to be held in trust for our child. I don't dispute this because that is something from their Dad that they can fall back on,but the solicitors did say had we been living together I may have been able to claim financial dependency when it came to the civil case and settlement that was brought against the people responsible. We weren't living together as we were waiting for the tenancy to run out on his expensive rental studio flat. Luckily I had good family around me.

The financial stuff didn't bother me as much,at the time all I wanted was my bf back but it made things very hard when I wanted to have his name on the birth certificate. Had to have DNA taken offically at the doctors and a small court proceeding to get permissio n to put his name on.

The worst part was that when the accident happened I was unable to establish from the hospital whether he had died, I was not a relative so I imagine if like others have mentioned your partner was ill that would be very difficult.

Sorry to sound so doom and gloom. I will definitely be getting married if i decide to have any more children and probably if I buy a house with my dp.

Reading that back it doesnt sound how I meant it to r.e pension etc. It was just very difficult for a couple of years having these people say "obviously as you were just a gf" or worse "in the eyes of the law you could be anyone who is just having the baby". Etc

I’ve seen one of my parents’ friends get stuffed when her partner died and it turned out they weren’t married (no one knew!)

I think you can put all the legal protections in place without marriage but it is by far the easiest and quickest way of doing it. You don’t need a “wedding” if that’s not your thing.

Don't count on a will to protect you as his biological siblings, parents and grandparents can contest it and you'll still be left with nothing.