New laws/rights for cohabiting couples

[jasper]

Heard a bit about this in the news yesterday but was not listening properly. Anyone got any info or a link? Thanks

aloha - oh good, one less group to worry about

Fisil, I've got nothing against people wanting to be unmarried - honest. And I said, as long as you have everything in joint names, equal earnings and wills then marriage doesn't really confer any extra benefits. I was actually thinking specifically of women who have posted on mumsnet whose partners won't marry them and are terrified of their financial insecurity - ie they gave up work to look after the kids, the property is in his name, so are the savings etc, and they know if he wants out, then they are in a very bad position. I remember a couple saying they wanted a kind of civil partnership because their partners refused to marry them, but I tend to think that a man who won't marry for financial reasons isn't likely to go through a partnership ceremony which could leave him just as badly off. That's all.

I probably have a view of marriage that is normally considered a male view.
I have been married before and as I am fond of saying, it's not marriage i'm afraid of it's divorce. When I met dp 8 y ago in my late 30s
I owned my house,he has many good points but being financially responsible is not among them.

He had debts of about 7k which I paid off. I have a good job, he has a not good job. We both work part time and share care of our two preschoolers. I wont marry him because I don't think he should get half the house if we split up ( I would never restrict access to the kids) We have a rocky relationship so splitting is a real possibility.
Do any of you blame me?
I am shocked that new legislation may give him effectively "common law" rights to the house I sweated blood and tears to pay for before he ever appeared!He would be first to accept he arsed about throughout his twenties while I went to uni and worked hard to get to where I am in my career.
Should he be entitled to half what it took me 20 years to earn because we have lived together for 7? With me paying the lions share of the bills all that time?
Wise women please comment

Nula, with you all the way there girl, same situation helped my dp get out of enormous financial dect and bad bad divorce support his kids and have put him back together financially but am buggered if he or his ex can get hold of my enormously hard earned comforts. Having said that we plan to be together forever and in time hope to be slightly more equitable in which case i may feel slightly more relaxed about it.

Aloha unmarried couples do not have automatic rights to pensions, inheritance tax breaks etc etc and they pay more tax annually than those that get married..... hardly fair really is it!!!

That's all right then aloha I just get fed up with people assuming that dp doesn't want to make commitment blah blah blah. In fact I left ivillage because several people implied that our relationship wasn't going to last because we weren't married ... hmmm, and all marriages do last, do they? Anyway, I accept what you're saying totally.

There are lots of good reasons for not wanting to get married - feminist reasons, legal, historical and religious connotations. I don't want security or financial help from any man. But it would be nice to be able to have a simple way of registering who I choose to be my legal next of kin, and who should be the beneficiary of my pension etc, without having to go through marriage (which includes making promises I would be really unhappy with) to get there. That's the same for single people who don't want their parents to be automatic next of kin etc.

Nula,

1. the new legislation is nothing about common law marriages. Same-sex partners have to go through a very similar formal registration process which can only be revoked by death or a court process which is so similar to divorce as to be untrue.

2. MArriage does not give your partner automatic right to half your assets. On divorce you need to split the assets between you, if you don't agree a court will make an order based on the contributins you've each made, though allowing for the needs of any children.

Stace - curious what annual tax breaks a married couple enjoys "annually". Married couples allowance now only goes to pensioners, in part to allow for the fact that a married couples pension is less than 2 single pensions... I'm aware of the IHT and capital gains tax breaks, where you can trasfer assets between you for less, but how many couples use these annually? Which other breaks am I missing out on?

my dp paid of £9k of my debts and when I sold my house I got £28k which I then sunk into his house to make it lovely, carpets, windows, new kitchen bathroom etc, my name is not on the mortgage as yet, we are buying anothr place together
I am crap with money and he knows it - he has rehabilitated me a lot though and trusts me with everything
Then we have a very secure and permanent relationship, any laws won't change that and now we have a legal agreement binding us as well...
I am sure we will get married one day!

Nula, there is no such thing as common law marriage - it is total and complete myth. Just because you live together or even have kids together does not give anyone the right to share ownership of property that is in your name.
150percent, a joint mortgage is NOT the same as joint ownership of your house. You must make sure that the house is registered with land registry as belonging to both of you - you can either own separate shares which you both own absolutley and can leave to whoever you like, or you can own it together so you are assumed to own half each and on the death of one partner the other will own their share absolutely.
Stace, it does seem you want to have your cake and eat it! You want none of the responsibilities/downsides of marriage - ie sharing of all assets, but all the 'avantages' ie inheritance tax (I too am baffled by all these tax breaks I am supposed to have! They don't exist.)
I can assure you that the civil partnership will include property-sharing, the right of one partner to be paid maintenance by the other etc - all the things you don't want. I do have to say, and I honestly don't mean this to sound offensive, if you are that reluctant to let your partner share in your financial assets then perhaps you don't envisage this as a lifelong relationship - in which case pensions and inheritance tax (which really is pretty marginal unless you are pretty wealthy and all the occupational pension schemes I've seen allow for named dependents regardless of marital status) would be pretty irrelevant, surely?

Aloha, my occupational pension doesn't allow for named partners. It doesn't really matter as DP has his own (and he earns more than me anyway).

I don't see why single, married, cohabiting or whatever people shouldn't have the same taxes and benefits on pensions, inheritance etc. whether that's everyone being allowed to nominate a dependent for pension, inheritance etc, or noone, regardless of partnership status. then people could choose siblings, friengs or whoever they wanted. regardless of their sexual preferences.

It seems as though people want to take all the benefits of marriage/civil partnerships etc but without taking the responsibilities that come with them.

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Nula, there is no such thing as common law marriage - it is total and complete myth. Just because you live together or even have kids together does not give anyone the right to share ownership of property that is in your name.
150percent, a joint mortgage is NOT the same as joint ownership of your house. You must make sure that the house is registered with land registry as belonging to both of you - you can either own separate shares which you both own absolutley and can leave to whoever you like, or you can own it together so you are assumed to own half each and on the death of one partner the other will own their share absolutely.
Stace, it does seem you want to have your cake and eat it! You want none of the responsibilities/downsides of marriage - ie sharing of all assets, but all the 'avantages' ie inheritance tax (I too am baffled by all these tax breaks I am supposed to have! They don't exist.)
I can assure you that the civil partnership will include property-sharing, the right of one partner to be paid maintenance by the other etc - all the things you don't want. I do have to say, and I honestly don't mean this to sound offensive, if you are that reluctant to let your partner share in your financial assets then perhaps you don't envisage this as a lifelong relationship - in which case pensions and inheritance tax (which really is pretty marginal unless you are pretty wealthy and all the occupational pension schemes I've seen allow for named dependents regardless of marital status) would be pretty irrelevant, surely?

Fennel, really the laws on inheritance are designed to protect people who would otherwise be left homeless - ie real dependents who actually depend on each other. This really doesn't usually apply to siblings, friends etc. The law is about protecting the needy, not about tax avoidance for everyone. And in any case, a bit of careful planning, making a will and taking advice on tax can usually give you protection financially if you are a genuine dependent. But actually, I'm really interested in what it is about the promises in marriage that you don't like. They are pretty basic IMO!

Bloss, I agree with you.

Well, really I don't like the legal (historical) conception of a marriage as a unit with a breadwinner and associated dependents (wife and children). I don't actually want DP's pension or to save on inheritance tax. I don't think married couples should have this benefit either though. In my mind it's an archaic notion of patriachal dependency and insulting to women.

I think it would be better for every adult to expect to be an independent financial unit with their own pension (all the divorced wives would have been better off with this too).

So really I'm not arguing for the benefits of marriage for people like me who as people point out am making the choice not to get married. I'm arguing that marriage (to my mind a personal sexual or relationship choice which is as likely as not to last) shouldn't determine these things in legal terms either.

about the bits of marriage I don't like. partly the insistence/pretence of sexual fidelity. what is it to the law who I shag or don't? the normalising and societal approval of sexual behaviour bugs me. The assumption of lifelong commitment as a necessity is also one I don't hold with - I only want DP to stay with me while he wants to, not because of any promise or commitment. And, for me and DP, we come from christian households where marriage is closely associated with certain gendered and spiritual beliefs which we want to distance ourselves from (man being head of household etc, yes it is still taught in many churches). To our families that's what marriage signifies.

So presumably you wouldn't want civil partnerships either?

BTW I want my dp to stick with this relationship even when he's not particularly loving it - and that goes for me too.

No, I wouldn't. But agree that at least I have the choice of marriage so am happy for gays and lesbians to have this option too (though I'd prefer them to reject it on ideological grounds!).

Incidentally when I rule the country all private property over a certain amount (which I haven't decided yet) will revert to the state rather than be inherited anyway.

And old people will be amply provided for by state services and pensions.

so these worries will become immaterial

Ah, right. Well, you certainly have an entirely consistent veiwpoint. But what do you think about couples where one partner gives up work - by consent - in order to care for their young children. Do you believe they should have any claim on each other's financial assets?

yes, I'd encourage a contract which accepts that parenting is as important a contribution to the household as paid work. But marriage fails miserably at this in practice.

But this is one of the biggest feminist arguments for women being encouraged to remain in the paid labour market at least part-time, and for men being encouraged to reduce working hours and doing more co-parenting. It leads to more balanced equitable relationships and better financial security in the long run.

I tend to agree with your last point Fennel.

I disagree that this is a feminist argument for women being encouraged to remain in the paid labour market - it's a feminist argument to change the economic structure which doesn't value childrearing. Saying that because our society doesn't value women's work, we should stop doing it and go and do something else, is giving in - we should be demanding that childrearing is valued and paid for (with a proper pension) so that every woman (or man) who wants to, can choose to do it. Agree with your point re reducing working hours though - when feminists starting demanding the right to equal opportunity to work, they forgot to demand the right for the working week to be reduced to 20 hours instead of 40, so that the work that needed to be done at home could be fitted in.

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