Do you live with a partner to whom you are not married? Do you assume that if you have been together for a while your relationship counts as a common-law marriage? Do you think that sharing bill-paying with your partner gives you a stake in the assets that produce those bills?
If your answer to any of those questions is ‘yes’, look up the case of Pamela Curran. Curran, 55, began a relationship with her now ex-partner Brian Collins in the late 1970s. Between then and 2010, the two lived and worked together, moving in 2007 into a boarding kennels and cattery in Kent, then valued at £750,000.
When they split in 2010, Curran assumed she was entitled to a “fair share” of the property. Not so. Collins was registered as the sole owner, no business partnership had been established and she was in fact entitled to nothing. No share in the house or the business, and no maintenance of any kind.
The truth is that – while cohabiting rather than marrying has become increasingly common – there is no such thing as a common-law partner. “The law does not recognise in any meaningful way a living together relationship outside marriage or civil partnership”, as one lawyer told The Guardian.
So if you choose not to take on the legal protection offered by marriage, you really need to draw up a cohabitation agreement – or ‘no-nup’ – to define the rights, responsibilities and financial entitlements of your relationship.
What do you put in it? The main thing is the asset split (who gets what if you break up). But in financial terms it might also cover how you intend to support your children, what happens to assets if one partner dies, how you deal with joint purchases (holidays or cars, for example), whether one partner will be allowed to buy out the other on a split, and how you will pay your bills.
And, says The Daily Telegraph, you can put in any of the other things that “fuel countless relationship rows” – perhaps who is to be in charge of childcare, or even rules governing visits to the other partner’s family or household chores.
Finally, note that, legally, ‘no-nups’ have a different status to ‘pre-nups’. The latter aren’t binding in UK courts for the simple reason that, once you are married, a judge has the discretion to divide your assets as he sees fit. However, the former are, says The Guardian.
As long as both parties have had independent legal advice before signing, their no-nup will “have the full force of law” behind it.
You can download a ready-made agreement from Lawpack.co.uk, but if you want a bespoke agreement it will cost you £660 from Co-operative Legal Services, or anything up to £3,000 with a solicitor, depending on how complicated your affairs are.