Charlotte Quain, family law specialist at Blythe Liggins Solicitors, looks at the potential impact of proposals to change legal rights for co-habiting couples
The government’s proposals to strengthen legal rights for cohabiting couples in England and Wales would represent a major reform.
In a consultation which ended in August, the government says the very limited set of protections provided under current law can leave cohabitants facing significant financial difficulties when relationships end. This disproportionately affects vulnerable groups such as women, children and victim-survivors of domestic abuse – including economic abuse.
The proposed change in the law would support the government’s manifesto commitment to “strengthen the rights and protections for women in cohabiting couples.”
The current status quo not only results in outcomes which are unfair and create financial hardship, but also create substantial financial barriers to leaving an abusive relationship.
Currently, cohabitees don’t have the same rights as married couples, so the proposals will offer them greater protection in certain circumstances.
Qualifying cohabitants could gain financial rights on separation, potentially including rights to claim for property adjustment orders, pension sharing orders and limited maintenance in exceptional circumstances. They could also gain some automatic inheritance rights.
The proposed framework is narrower than the financial remedies available on divorce, intentionally aiming to preserve the status of marriage, but seeks to provide a greater level of protection than is currently available for cohabitants.
Eligibility requirements being proposed include that the framework should only apply to adults in a committed, romantic relationship who have lived together for at least three years, or who live together and share a child together.
Cohabiting couples would be able to “opt out” of the framework if they both choose, subject to certain safeguards, and the time limits being proposed would prevent claims being made after two years following the end of the relationship.
A broad range of reactions
I have seen a broad range of responses to the proposals. Many are strongly in support of change, with some believing the proposals should go further.
However, I’ve also seen the view that while marriage and civil partnerships are legal relationships that people choose to enter into, the proposals for reform would impose obligations without either partner making that choice, or even being aware of the legal consequences of their relationship.
Conservative MP and shadow minister, Neil O’Brien, has argued against the proposals, stating that marriage is “unusual precisely because it involves a deliberate public commitment,” and the proposals risk creating a legal relationship without the same explicit consent.
He referred to the proposals as “automated ‘marriage-lite’” – however, Jo Edwards, who chairs the law reform committee of national family lawyers’ organisation Resolution, disagrees.
She said increasingly, people aren’t getting married and we need a safety net for those who need it when an unmarried relationship breaks down. In many cases, she argues, the refusal to marry can be part of a pattern of coercive controlling behaviour.
She added: “The proposals will protect the vulnerable. They will not find themselves ‘bounced into a contract they never signed’; they would do what happens in other spheres where an unequal relationship exists by providing legal protection to the weaker party, through limited redress where the end of a committed relationship leaves one in a position of need.”
