Around Britain there exists an increasing trend among couples to live together despite the fact that they are not married or even joined by way of a civil partnership. In some cases this might be simply because an official partnership is likely, having said that it might be because they really feel they do not need to be joined by the law in order to show their commitment to one another. No matter the reason, couples living with each other have to know they do not have the same rights as people in a lawful partnership.

Many cohabiting partners think that there is such a thing as a 'common law marriage', that applies to all partners living together. However, they could be shocked to find out that this is actually incorrect in England. A lot of adults that are simply cohabiting are living with each other without much of the safeguards available to husbands and wives and also civil partners, which could create problems once the relationship ends, or one of the partners dies.

Property and Cohabitation
The sad thing is, it is quite probable that there exists a lot of cohabiting couples who are unaware of just how precarious their current legal situation may be. To prevent this scenario, couples should be thinking about the most suitable plan of action while they are looking to purchase a home with each other.

Cohabitation & Finances
The money affairs of husbands and wives and people who are in a civil partnership are significantly better protected than those that happen to be merely cohabiting. If a marriage or civil partnership is dissolved, each spouse would have a right to a proportion of their joint financial assets, and one spouse might even have to give maintenance payments to the other. Cohabiting partners on the other hand, will not experience these same rights.

Cohabiting Parents
Whenever a legally married couple have a child both are accepted as the mother and father of the baby and therefore enjoy the responsibility and rights which come with that. When it comes to cohabiting individuals, the daddy could have absolutely no legal rights to the baby except if he's present whenever the birth is documented, or all the relevant documents are supplied that will confirm he is the dad.

Cohabitation Agreement
In order to safeguard themselves against the potential legal pitfalls associated with cohabitation, a lot of couples tend to employ our Bristol Divorce Solicitors to set up a cohabitation agreement. This can be accomplished before moving in together, during the course of cohabitation, or even just after separating (however in that case it has got much more in common with the standard separation agreement).

All the laws and regulations associated with couples who happen to be living with one another outside of a marital relationship or civil union are going through a review and it's most likely that these laws and regulations might be modified at some point.



Leave a Reply.