Unmarried couples to gain property rights and possible wider implications

[MsGreying]

Unmarried people to gain rights to partner's property
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/millions-of-unmarried-couples-to-get-stronger-rights

Whilst a simple glance makes it sound appealing I think this has serious consequences.

There's a 10 week consultant from Friday

Citation please.

I think what the evidence shows is that social connection, autonomy, relationship quality, health and money status have much, much more bearing than simple categories like “married / single / childless”.

a lot of the issues could be resolved if people made wills even if not married.

if someone doesn’t want marriage, a civil partnership or even to take out insurance or a will then it’s pretty clear they aren’t a partnership

He could leave everything to her in his will.

I think it gives protection to a lot of women who currently think they have rights, especially if they have children and are then left with nothing.

Older people can always make a will to protect assets for their children.

More interesting is that the consultation proposes that pre-nuptial and post-nuptial agreements should be made legally binding. Currently they are only advisory.

This measure seems deeply illogical to me.

The argument in favour (if I understand correctly) is that a minority of people are so vulnerable/uneducatable that they can't access the long-established simple options of marriage, civil partnership or wills and therefore require the protection of these by-default cohabitation rights.

Which puts the onus on the majority to have to live apart or educate themselves on wills, roommate agreements, documenting whatever minutiae would be used as criteria to define established relationships to make sure you don't go over, having to be vigilant about cuckooing or cocklodging etc.

Sounds like a huge amount more effort, by more people, with more likelihood of things going wrong, than if the government campaigned harder to raise awareness of the readily available protections already in place.

I agree this is a terrible idea. I’ve been with my OH for 27 years and we never felt the need to get married but knew we had to protect each other financially so we entered in to a Civil Partnership earlier this year. It was so easy to do and only took about 15 minutes. It was just us and 2 witnesses. No need for it to be anything but signing some papers. We were more excited for the restaurant we went to afterwards!

A major benefit being no IHT between partners.

Absolutely disagree with this. If it was purely limited to meeting the needs of children of both partners at a minimum threshold I could agree with it. But looking at the consultation it’s not - it includes meeting the housing, income and pension needs of both partners plus all children taking into account the standard of living during the cohabitation. In other words if I allow a skint unemployed boyfriend to move in, I become liable for housing him and any of his kids (regardless of if they’re mine) if the relationship breaks down. I firmly believe that I should have to explicitly consent before anyone has right over any of my assets, it shouldn’t just happen by accident.

It's Fabian paternalism is what it is! The 'lower classes' are considered (by a certain sort of MP) to be incapable of rationality and self-restraint. Therefore 'we' must legislate to protect them from themselves. And anyway, 'we' know that sensible, intelligent people of our own class will legally protect all their assets so it'll be no skin of our nose. Think Stella Creasy when you consider the type of MP who comes up with this stuff.

I've just seen on one of the other threads, if I recall correctly it was somebody keen to emphasise how well this sneaky-pseudo-marriage-by-default was working in some other country - apparently all people have to do, if they don't want to be eventually tied together without an act of positive consent, is to separately obtain legal counsel and separately sign individual opt-outs prior to moving in - I think we were meant to be impressed by how very simple, easy and progressive this was compared to... um... just getting married/partnered

I was just going to post exactly the same point! A bit more education about their rights for the minority of people who don't understand that co-habitation does not confer rights that marriage or civil partnerships do- that's all the government needs to do here! Forcing everyone else to make major adjustments to their lives is, to say the least, a very odd way of doing things.

(BTW, remind you of anything else we've been discussing here for more than a decade?)

I am assuming that, if they go ahead with proposals, they will need to "equalize " IHT laws to include these new legal co-habitors? That would actually mean they would get less IHT upfront from each, formerly "single" person, because, as PP said, there is no IHT due if you leave everything to a "spouse." (I think that's right?).

I have been married twice, but am now a widow. I have no plans to ever live with anyone else again, but if I decided to do that, no way would I let any new partner or partner's adult children (likely to be in their forties or fifties) inherit everything I've had from my grandparents, parents, and late husband.

I can't understand the government's thinking on this.

This

Would it be very cynical to notice that is is being discussed at a time in history when more unmarried women are finally starting to accumulate assets?

I wonder how someone will prove they have been cohabitating, and conversely how they will prove they have not been cohabiting. If someone takes in a lodger, and they then have a fling, and then continue in a platonic house owner / lodger relationship, who has rights in the property?

I think this is a softly softly step towards adressing this issue, which is the most we'll ever get from Labour.

I think a much harder stance should also be taken against Sharia Courts in the UK. Any property being used as a Sharia court should seized and any person practicing Sharia law should be done for perverting the course of justice/ perjury or some other similar law, including the option for custodial sentencing. You can not have a just and democratic society with an unaccountable back yard legal system running in parallel.

But then I guess it will just be passed off as "religious counselling" instead.

I thought civil marriage was for people who wanted the same rights as a married couple without the wedding?

Ive lived with my partner for nearly 20 years but im fully aware of my rights. I don’t want the same rights as a married couple so we aren’t married.

You are fully married in a Registry Office ceremony but you don't have to have the big wedding party. It's not an intrinsic part of the legal formalities.
There are two types because 'gay marriage' was seen as controversial but then some heterosexuals started to demand the right to either version and voila, both options (marriage or civil partnership) are now available to everyone. They are virtually the same.

Will it, though?
If people just don't want to be tied to another person, they just won't cohabit. Fair enough.
It will encourage commitment phobic men who've avoided marriage because of the negative consequences of divorce to not even live with anybody anymore.

The government isn't going to shame those men into living with the mothers of their children. That ship has sailed.

I forsee a rise in single parent households.
Many of which will require financial support in the form of top up benefits.

I haven't RTFT so sorry if repeating but something has just occurred to me.
We used to have a simple binary system of men and women. Then a Labour Government decided to introduce a law that says men can be women and women can be men.
This is the same. We have a simple binary system of married or not-married. And a Labour Government wants to introduce a law that says non-married are effectively married.
Why can't thy (especially Mr Hot Shot Lawyer Starmer) stick to basic legal definitions that match reality. Why do they want to obfuscate?
Explain the law very clearly: that there is no such thing as a common-law wife and if you want the legal benefits of marriage then get married. And if he won't marry then walk away.

What's their next law going to be. That gravity works upwards? That time will now go backwards?

Interesting... you might have something there. Assuming, of course, that the government has given this any more thought at all than "where can we find more money?" If it isn't about money, I can't think of a single, logical reason for this, not fixing the housing crisis, not to get more council tax, not to get more IHT, not even to force more people to marry (do they really think people would, just to avoid the alternative?) - it just seems nonsensical to me.

Then a Labour Government decided to introduce a law that says men can be women and women can be men.

I agree with your post, except I'm confused about this statement. Did you mean the Scottish Government?

Or did you mean the Gender Recognition Act?

It was a Conservative government, when Maria Miller was Equalities Minister. There was quite a strong and not especially party political response to her consultation over self ID here on these boards when she introduced it, and that was the start of the long, hard fight back for women’s rights.

Is there nothing they won’t blame Labour for ? I read last week That labour sold off all the Council Housing I nearly spat my tea out

GRA was passed in 2004 when Blair was PM.

The Tories rowed back from self id when they looked into it. They listened whereas Labour just called everyone bigots for not wanting to give our rights away.