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

She does have rights, if she has been paying things like the mortgage, repairs etc. then she has acquired rights in property law.

Codifying that particular situation for clarity would be more sensible than making everyone default in to a weird quazi-marriage situation with legal implications to leave just from living together.

All the unmarried couples I know where there is a property owner and higher earner it is the woman who is the owner/earner.

Not sure this is the impact that the government expects. Young women earning more under 40, people being able to drag a break up through legal costs after 3 years...

This sounds like the CMS all over again. Stupid people thinking they have "good intentions" but producing a totally inadequate situation.

This is long overdue. ExDP abused me and made sure our finances were arranged so I had no leg to stand on when I left him. A close family member was a solicitor and I’m pretty sure he got advice. Currently, the law is stacked against women.

But just say you deliberately didn't get married to avoid your partner taking half your house?

How can someone be in a relationship that isn't equivalent to marriage in that case?

There has to be a way to enable someone to have a partner but not give them half their stuff automatically if it goes tits up? Unless you've got kids then obviously the obligation is jointly towards them.

The proposal is everyone will need to have a legal agreement drafted (each with independent solicitors) to avoid becoming legally responsible for each other at 3 years. So you need solicitors to get in to a relationship

As it relates to the specific co-habitation arrangement, there is no detail of how long these last or if they are reset by circumstances like moving, one person working away etc.

If this applies retroactively can we not see a lot of unforeseen consequences? People splitting up because of it?

Yeah that sounds kinda fucked up?! Why should you engage a solicitor in order to be in a relationship that isn't a marriage?! Like you opt in by marrying. Not that you opt out by employing a lawyer?!

Many people would walk into this unknowingly - the same as now, but in reverse. It's a terrible solution. Just have an education programme to make everyone aware of their current legal rights, or lack of them, and let them make their own decisions on marriage.

Yeah. It seems bizarre and messed up. It's the reverse of what is meant to happen. You engage someone to marry you, then a solicitor if you spilt.

No marriage, no need for solicitor.

It must be a racket to get solicitors more work or some weird shit?

In furious agreement with @Thisistyresome @BillieWiper @SwirlyGates I went and copied the thing I said on the other thread:

The ironic thing is, the vulnerable/poorly informed/uneducatable/possibly abused cohort of people that this is meant to "help" will end being the same cohort most badly affected by it.

People who are already well-informed and empowered to protect themselves and their assets will (depending on their position) have availed themselves of the protections of marriage/civil partnership, or have made the choice not to do so, and (if this patronising violation of the principle of consent is enacted) take the necessary steps to arrange legal contracts or avoid the cohabitation thresholds or whatever.

The former cohort though, will fall into the cohabitation trap and get fleeced by the same controlling/abusive/cocklodging/gold-digging opportunists for whatever property and savings they might have accumulated.

And then we'll start a new cycle of sadface "we must do something" campaigns for another lawyerly gravy train.

Yeah it's basically a cocklodger enablement scheme. And the vulnerable and abused will be paying the price.

I agree in helping some vulnerable people you unintentionally hurt some other vulnerable people.

This is also my experience. I know far more women owning homes with their partners moving in than the other way around.

A court may argue that the homeowner has benefited by the partner moving in, but the partner is likely to have benefited more by not having to pay rent in the private sector.

I understand that things may be different if a couple share children.

How would it be different?
It means that a woman with a stable home environment to provide her children with potentially brings in an unstable person
Who then when she wants to get rid of that unstable person reduces the stability she is able to offer her children
When he has literally just bought semen to the table
Hopefully not literally
Reverse that scenario and if it’s a female moving into the household, yes, the children are incoming as well
But it’s entirely possible that he can continue his life unhindered and worst case scenario he has to pay a month upfront and guarantee her rent when she leaves with or without the children. And that’s only if he wants to.

Well said!

I really think people who want the rights of marriage / civil partnership should get married or civil partnered.

It seems morally wrong to impose on people something they have not signed up for.

It’s not stacked against those of us who don’t wish you hand over our assets to a live-in boyfriend.

I though defacto arrangements were such a stupid idea when I lived in Oz

They’ve got one hell of a housing crisis because of all the single households
Although I think most people just make them sign a rental agreement and rent a room to their boyfriends and girlfriends until marriage

It’s purely voluntary so not sure how you could do this also doing this towards “Sharia Courts” and not other religious courts would be basic discrimination.

But many people want to cohabit with another person without having a legal contract imposed on them.

I really don't agree with this. If you want rights to each other's property, get married! I don't want my partner having rights over my property, which is partly why I haven't married!

I know. I'm wholly, utterly and completely against cohabiting 'rights'.
I must have posted dozens of posts as to why this is on the other thread about this.
There's not just one reason to be against it, there's many!
I don't want to list them all again on this thread.

Though I have no personal experience of this, I can see it from both sides - but what happens if someone moves in to cohabit for a short time? Plus, most people live together before getting married?