Coercive control and cohabitees’ rights to property - Maria Wheeler and Labour

[LoobiJee]

From a Guardian article.

”Labour would also seek to give common-law wives who live with their partners the same rights, including over property, as married women should their relationship end.”

Bit misleading. That right couldn’t be restricted to women. It would also be available to men who move in with a woman who owns her own property. Which would make a woman subject to coercive control even more unable to leave the relationship.

This is a terrifying comment tagged on the end. There is no guaranteed opt out - which means that actually there is no safe way to cohabit and ensure your own financial well-being.

Merely want to say here, that this is the same situations with pre-nuptial agreements entered into before marriage. There is no guaranteed opt out there either - and basically for the the same reason, where it would be leave a situation that would be 'manifestly unfair'. The Courts have said (in the context of Pre-nupts) that it would not allow the jurisdiction of the court to be ousted.

This is one of the problems I have with Labour. When they campaign to save a local library, or to help families with children, or build more social housing, I really want to vote for them.
Then they say 'oh, btw, we also intend to introduce a load of laws to regulate your personal life and relationships, there'll be unintended consequences and losers as well as winners but let's all hold hands and hope for the best.'
Although, the Tories seem to have given up on being the party of staying out of your private life too, so not sure who I'd vote for instead.

This is a policy that was mooted by Labour back in the days of the New Labour government. There was no attempt to actually introduce it though, I assume because the problems of implementing it were recognised at the time. It really did seem like complete state overreach which could have lots of unwanted and unintended consequences. My fear is that the Labour government we're likely to get next year either won't see or won't care.

In The Times. Seems like they have looked at NZ but...like self-ID...you have to question that. Have they shut out those whose experiences do not support this change? Getting a pasting in the comments anyway.

Labour’s common-law marriage pledge to give millions of cohabiting couples property rights

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a1dcc480-67ad-11ee-a4e7-0fb10af55688?shareToken=766c428ab695623a3542c4e60d32fd9e

"[Thornberry] said it was “time we reviewed this issue in England and Wales, just as it has been in New Zealand, Scotland and Ireland”. She added: “No woman should be forced to get married or stay in an unhappy relationship just to avoid being put out on the street.”

The thing is that in the case of prenups, people are choosing to marry. They are choosing to enter in to a legal contract. A prenup is an attempt to get around or control that legal contract in various ways. Fair enough for the courts to be sniffy about that.

This proposal put people in a situation where without choosing to do so (in fact, they may be actively choosing not to enter into a marriage contract) they get lumbered with the consequences of a contract anyway. And there can be no way to make it clear that, even by living with someone, they are not entering into any kind of legal property sharing arrangement. A court can just decide that it’s unfair and hand half the value of their house to their partner.

That’s atrocious. And utterly dystopian. There was no legal contract for the court to have jurisdiction over. The court should stay out of it.

Marriage exists. Even civil partnership exists. If people want to create legal financial ties to each other, they can choose to do so.

Creating a situation where having someone live in your house - that you pay for and own - allows them to gradually accumulate ownership of it by default is awful.

“Creating a situation where having someone live in your house - that you pay for and own - allows them to gradually accumulate ownership of it by default is awful.”

How are they going to protect vulnerable older adults from this policy?

Good point. How will they protect against cuckooing?

"[Thornberry] said it was “time we reviewed this issue in England and Wales, just as it has been in New Zealand, Scotland and Ireland”. She added: “No woman should be forced to get married or stay in an unhappy relationship just to avoid being put out on the street.”

So what are they going to introduce?

• A right to access emergency accommodation?
• A right to refuse to move out?
• Rent controls to ensure that individual on low income can afford to move out and rent somewhere?
• Or a right to go through an expensive legal process in order to be given at some point in the future a financial payment equivalent to half the value of someone else’s property, minus the lawyers’ costs?

I’ve had two BFs try and move in with me. Not right emotionally in those instances, but no3 would be in with even less of a chance.

Some people can be very keen on free housing. And the rest.

The new law would as now have to cost or value unpaid contributions eg childcare and, equally, introduce an acknowledgment of no contributions, before it handed over half the property.

We have a fairly similar rule in NZ, if you live with someone for two years in a relationship you can then have a claim on the property. If everyone knows what the rules are they can protect themselves.

I have chosen not to marry, have been with dp over 10 years and I own the house we live in, I want my dc to inherit it. Stop treating us as idiots, yes make the benefits / pitfalls of marriage more widely known but don't force people into this, if we wanted to marry we would but we both have had poor marriages and children from them who we want to inherit our individual possessions

"[Thornberry] said it was “time we reviewed this issue in England and Wales, just as it has been in New Zealand, Scotland and Ireland”. She added: “No woman should be forced to get married or stay in an unhappy relationship just to avoid being put out on the street.”

That's Labour's view of women. Poor unfortunate victims with nary a penny to their name. Waiting for the state to come and save them from their bad decisions.

Her comment makes no sense anyway as the same law will apply to women and men.

How?

The report basically made it clear that was no way to make an agreement to protect yourself from this marriage by stealth nonsense. The court can just decide it’s unfair.

Making cohabitation financially risky for women with assets is not a good outcome for anyone.

People should be able to live together without taking on the obligations of marriage. Maybe adults should all recognise that unless you are married, you literally only own the things that are yours. If you are not named on the deeds of a house, it is not yours.

If you choose to live in a house you don’t own… you need to recognise that you live in a house you don’t own and make decisions accordingly.

Proper access to socially-subsidised housing, childcare and help in finding employment are all much better ways to help unmarried women in terrible relationships.

Her comment makes no sense anyway as the same law will apply to women and men.

yes. It’s a cocklodger’s charter!

Good comment under The Times article on this: "You don't solve ignorance of the law by introducing more laws."

I agree it would be better to educate children/teenagers about exactly what getting married means, in legal terms. Especially that agreeing you will get married eventually is not the same as actually being married.

Your post is confused. You think women should get married for financial benefits. Yet you would deny these to unmarried women because it “undermines marriage”?

I personally don’t agree with a cohabitee being able to claim your assets. I was better off not being married (as I was the party with the most assets). But of course that’s not the case for all women but nor are women helpless to provide for themselves.

But tbh why are women with children impoverished because they aren’t married? We need a proper child maintenance system- men’s obligations to support their children should not be dependent on being married to their mother. We should move away from the idea that women need to marry well in order to financially survive and emphasize financial self reliance.

*How?

The report basically made it clear that was no way to make an agreement to protect yourself from this marriage by stealth nonsense. The court can just decide it’s unfair.*

If the time limit is two years, you move out after one year and eleven months so that the clock can reset😉the problem might be how serious the 'move out' has to be before it could be accepted and how long a break would be accepted. Of course, an encumbrance in practice.

There is already education at school etc about marriage. It’s silly to think women or men are not getting married because they don’t know what it means. Often it’s because they don’t want to get married. Or their partner doesn’t want to marry them.

There is already education at school etc about marriage. It’s silly to think women or men are not getting married because they don’t know what it means. Often it’s because they don’t want to get married. Or their partner doesn’t want to marry them.

This Labour Party initiative is predicated on the assumption that some people (often women) are left without financial protections when their relationships break down.

Are you saying that most people are fully aware of these risks and are making an informed choice to cohabit rather than marry?

If so, there's no need for Labour to have any position at all on this.

It is a terrible idea for England and yet another reason to vote Conservative.

@Heelenahandbasket I don’t think my post is confused. My main point is that marriage is based on a written contract. There are administrative hurdles you have to jump through. Cohabiting … starts with a toothbrush and then all of a sudden the ‘visits’ get longer and facts are established on the ground.

If you get divorced (rather than split after cohabiting) you might be able to get your ex to pay some maintenance, esp. if you sacrificed your career to make a home/raise kids. Not the case with cohabiting which is why, if a dear friend who has children with her male partner asked me if she should get married I would say yes. Unless he’s the one who takes on a greater share of domestic duties. Of course that’s still unusual.

I’m not really interested in ‘ideas we should move away from’ as I’m not the nation’s educator. I think legislation should be based on the way things are, not as they ought to be.

the answer to a problem where some people not understanding that configuring does not give the legal protections/obligations of marriage is not to sneak those obligations on cohabiting people.

Legal contracts should be intentionally entered in to. The idea that you can accrue a common law spouse is unfair and takes the choice away.

It’s also really unfair to many women. Women are not all hapless dependents on men, or victims, or any of the other things these kind of weirdly paternalistic policy ideas seem to be premised on.

Nor is it the case that cohabiting without marriage inherently makes women vulnerable. For women who maintain their careers (especially if they’re the higher earner), not being married may be advantageous. Similarly for women who came to the relationship with their own assets. Being married may be a truly terrible idea for them.

Having children with someone does not need to mean that you have to be entirely financially interdependent. Issues can (and do) arise when one partner - disproportionately the woman - reduces their financial independence by going part time, becoming a SAHM, taking a lower paid job, and so on. Marriage is a contract that may be important for women choosing to do this.

But it is not necessarily wrong for a couple to decide they want to maintain financial independence even if they are living together and raising children together - so long as no one is tricking anyone else.

The problem where some women think having children creates a kind of common law marriage so they make themselves financially dependent on a man who has no legal obligations towards them may well be exacerbated by policies like this. Or the problem where they believe a ‘jam tomorrow’ engagement ring does the same. Sure, it might mean they accrue some claim on the equity in the house, but that’s still not equivalent to a marriage contract (which encompasses so much more).

Women in these situations may believe they are adequately ‘protected’, when they very much are not. Problematic men are likely to choose to ensure their assets - pensions, personal savings, investments - are beyond the reach of this law, while ensuring that the equity in the house remains minimal to reduce their financial risk in cohabiting.

This is the sort of policy intervention that may be relatively easy to achieve in practice, but it fundamentally misunderstands the problem so it cannot possibly solve it. Instead it creates a new set of problems to go along with it.

The deep set cultural problems of patriarchy mean than women are generally disproportionately disadvantaged in both directions.

It is incredibly simple, you choose to cohabit without a financial arrangement you understand your rights to your home are shared.

I am horrified by so many, usually women, who invest their time, careers, money into relationships and conveniently men turn round and claim they are too ‘ constrained’ by marriage but have had women happily give them children, contribute financially, mentally, emotionally and physically but when the relationship breaks down she receives nothing and the children inevitably suffer the instability of rentals while he moves on, it is totally immoral.

My own partner of twenty years, had, when we got together just paid out a partner of three years. They Shared a property, she had contributed towards caring for it, maintaining things while he was out at work and she got a fair payout owing to NZ property law, she couldn’t contribute towards the deposit or mortgage financially but she did other things. No she wasn’t on the mortgage but they had lived together long enough. Fair and proper, he knew the law and so did she.

Anything that stops the insecurity of housing that so many women and children face, from the laws in the UK that are antiquated and resoundingly only support marriage ( which is imo a broken institution which so many turn their backs on, so why bother in the first place?).

I say this as someone who lives in a house in solely her name, knowing if we split up he would have a claim.

*It is incredibly simple, you choose to cohabit without a financial arrangement you understand your rights to your home are shared.

I am horrified by so many, usually women, who invest their time, careers, money into relationships and conveniently men turn round and claim they are too ‘ constrained’ by marriage but have had women happily give them children, contribute financially, mentally, emotionally and physically but when the relationship breaks down she receives nothing and the children inevitably suffer the instability of rentals while he moves on, it is totally immoral.*

And if they don't have children? What if we have a single mother with a child, who has a house or a flat. After a time she gets into a new relationship, after a time her new partner moves in. Some time later they break up. Why should this woman lose a share of her house, so that she has to sell, and she and her children have to 'inevitably suffer the instability of rentals' while her partner moves on, now richer by the share of the house?

It is incredibly simple, you choose to cohabit without a financial arrangement you understand your rights to your home are shared.

why should this automatically be the case.

choosing to live together doesn’t mean you’re choosing to be financially interdependent. Should not automatically follow.

sharing your home is not the same as sharing the rights to that home.

or should lodgers accrue rights too?