Unmarried... so who getswhatifyousplit?
Half of couples don’t know living together doesn’t give the same rights as being married.. but it could pay to be informed
MORE than 2.5 million unmarried couples who are living together haven’t done anything to safeguard their finances, property or other valuable possessions should they split up.
A third of them trust their partner will provide for them should they break up, a quarter just haven’t got around to it, while some are too scared to bring it up.
And research shows more than half wrongly believe that at some point during their relationship they will earn the same rights as their married counterparts.
You might hear the term “common law marriage” – but there is no such thing in Scotland and there hasn’t been since 2006. If you are co-habiting you do not have the same legal rights as a married couple.
Being named in your partner’s will gives protection should he or she die but it doesn’t take into account a split.
If you aren’t named in the will, chances are you will walk away with nothing. The starting point is that co-habiting couples have no automatic right to claim anything. However, while co-habiting couples are not entitled to the same financial provision as married couples/civil partners upon separation, the law does enable co-habitants to make a financial claim against their ex-partner.
The court has a wide discretion but where a person can show that they have suffered an economic disadvantage as a result of their separation and their ex-partner has in turn derived an economic advantage from that, then they can seek to make a claim.
There are different claims which can be made. There are also very strict timescales for making a claim – it must be brought within one year of the separation.
This means a court action needs to have been raised and served on the other person before the one-year anniversary has expired. Problems can arise when one partner is the sole owner of the property but the other has made regular or ad hoc payments towards the mortgage, or maybe paid out significant sums on refurbishment of the property.
There have been cases where the non-property owner has been involved in large-scale construction which meant the property owner has saved tens of thousands of pounds.
Yet because the partner was not named on the deeds and no agreement has been put in place, they have no actual rights to a slice of the pot when the house is sold.
Do you really want to have to prove in court that you paid for the enhancement in the property and in turn increased its value and as such are entitled to a share of the profit on sale?
Well, that’s what will happen if you don’t get an agreement in place and you have subsidised the enhancement of your partner’s house. In broad terms, the person whose name isn’t on the title deeds and is co-habiting will have to prove they forked out for an improvement to the property or paid the mortgage and as such is entitled to a share of the property that isn’t in his/her name.
To avoid spending time and money on costly disagreements in court if you split up, make sure you get protected and seek legal advice now.
It is relatively cheap to get a co-habitation agreement drawn up, setting out what you own and what the other party owns. Then there can be no costly legal fights over what belongs to whom.
You can cover a multitude of items in a co-habitation agreement – houses, money, furniture and even access to kids in the event of a split.
Maybe you don’t want to ruin the romance by talking about what would happen if the relationship ends, but it’s better to talk now than through your lawyers.
You can find a family lawyer in your area through the Law Society of Scotland website – www. lawscot.org.uk