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.

why should this automatically be the case

Quite.

Essentially it's the government saying if you want to be in a relationship then tough tits, you're married. It's a crazy overreach into your private life.

Once they've interfered like this and forced people into contracts, what else will they do? I daren't think.

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

That's quite a sinister statement to make. Especially in context of a massive housing shortage.

Also where does this stand with regard to mortgage contracts? Can someone claim they own 50% of your property and automatically be named on your mortgage? Will they apply to the Land Registry? What evidence will be needed?

Eyewateringly stupid idea.

I would hope the banks may have something to say with people not named on the mortgage accruing financial interest in a property by time served.

Politicians might actually listen to them, after all. Not to us women.

What happens when a couple divorce where the mortgage is in one spouse's name only?

Doesn't the spouse not named on the mortgage have an interest in the property by virtue of the marriage?

Check out Family Law (Scotland) Act 2006 - art. 28 ('Financial provision where cohabitation ends otherwise than by death')

(2)On the application of a cohabitant (the “applicant”), the appropriate court may, after having regard to the matters mentioned in subsection (3)—

(a)make an order requiring the other cohabitant (the “defender”) to pay a capital sum of an amount specified in the order to the applicant;

(b)make an order requiring the defender to pay such amount as may be specified in the order in respect of any economic burden of caring, after the end of the cohabitation, for a child of whom the cohabitants are the parents;

(c)make such interim order as it thinks fit.

(3)Those matters are—

(a)whether (and, if so, to what extent) the defender has derived economic advantage from contributions made by the applicant; and

(b)whether (and, if so, to what extent) the applicant has suffered economic disadvantage in the interests of—

(i)the defender; or

(ii)any relevant child.

What would the bank have to say? What the cohabitant would acquire is a personal right against the other cohabitant, not in itself a real right over the property.

The ownership of property might be affected by marriage if it becomes a matrimonial home, but the bank cannot on the basis of granting you a loan and getting a subordinate real right in return (by granting the mortgage) control whether you do or do not marry, even though rights might arise in that circumstance.

Yes. But a divorce settlement is a court order. To meet the terms of that court order the house may have to be sold, remortgaged or it’s ownership transferred.

And just because Scotland has done something stupid, doesn’t mean the rest of the UK should follow. This is probably yet another example of the SNP pretending it’s make Scotland into a progressive utopia. But the reality is somewhat removed from that.

Another reason not to consider moving back home.

And just because Scotland has done something stupid, doesn’t mean the rest of the UK should follow. This is probably yet another example of the SNP pretending it’s make Scotland into a progressive utopia.

Cohabitants gained these rights in Scots law in 2006. The first SNP government was from 2007. This law was passed by a hung parliament under a Labour First Minister.

It's true, however, that looking at law reform proposals that have come out in more recent years in Scotland (in regards to potential changes to succession law), that there is a push to grant rights to cohabitants and to reduce the rights of children to automatically succeed to (part of) the estate. Children in Scotland have legal rights to a share in a parent's estate (although the spouse has also prior rights which given the size of many estates, may essentially exhaust the estate).

Well let’s blame Scottish Labour too.

Regardless, it’s all a horrible idea.

If people want to co-own stuff, they can do so by actively choosing to enter into some sort of legal contract about it.

Otherwise, frankly, people moving in to houses their partner owns but they don’t, should recognise that they are basically lodgers. Even if they have children with that partner.

The problems that arise when women do that and leave themselves hugely vulnerable if the relationship breaks down, should be addressed through avenues such as the welfare system.

"The problems that arise when women do that and leave themselves hugely vulnerable if the relationship breaks down, should be addressed through avenues such as the welfare system."

I imagine that:s one reason the Labour party are so keen on this idea - they know they won't be able to find the money to increase welfare spending as well as afford the other spending plans they have .

I wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised.

Similarly, they aren’t going to sort out the child maintenance situation.