If you live together as a couple but are not married or in a civil partnership, you’re in good company.
If you live together as a couple but are not married or in a civil partnership, you’re in good company. About one in six couples in the UK are currently cohabiting and this number is set to rise as the numbers of marriages fall.
However, if you do not have a valid Will in place, the law does not automatically recognise your unmarried partner as a beneficiary of your Estate, and they may not receive anything at all on your death. Our head of Wills and Probate, Amye Aris, explains more.
What rights do cohabiting couples in the UK have?
The rights of unmarried couples are extremely limited when thinking about inheritance. There is no such thing as “common law marriage”, no matter how long you have been together. Some people assume that if you have children together, or you own a house together, that this would count. Cohabiting partners have no automatic right to inherit from one another, no matter how long they have been together.
The only exception to this is that any assets that are owned jointly (such as bank accounts or property owned as Joint Tenants) would pass automatically to the remaining partner outright under the survivorship rules, which again may not be the wishes of the person who died – especially if they had children from a previous relationship and wanted their share in the property or their money to pass to them and not to their partner who may be well off in their own right, with children of their own.
The Rules of Intestacy and risk of not having a Will
Dying without a valid Will in place (intestate), means that strict legal rules will determine who gets your assets. These are called the Rules of Intestacy and are a set list of who would inherit in order of what relations are alive when you die. Children of the deceased would inherit over and above a cohabitee who doesn’t even feature on this list. If no children are alive then parents would inherit, and so on.
Making a Will
Creating a Will means that the Rules of Intestacy are avoided altogether and cohabitees can be left a share of your Estate. It ensures that assets are distributed in accordance with that person’s last known wishes, rather than following a prescribed list set by the law-makers.
For advice on Estate planning, looking after your children and your cohabitee contact our expert Amye Aris today on 01908 542677 or amyearis@newleafsolicitors.co.uk to find out more.
