Cohabitation

When you live with someone, you build a life together a bit at a time. A home, shared bills, perhaps children. There is rarely a moment that prompts either of you to stop and think about the legal side of it.

That’s completely understandable, and for many couples it never becomes an issue. It’s worth knowing, though, that the law treats unmarried couples very differently from married ones. Common law marriage isn’t a real thing, and living together for ten or twenty years doesn’t build up the rights that marriage brings. Most people learn this at a painful moment, when a relationship ends or a partner dies, and it tends to come as a shock.

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How we can help with Cohabitation.

Cohabitation agreements

A binding agreement recording how you share costs and what happens to your home and belongings if you separate.

Property and ownership

Establishing who owns what share of a home, including where one of you has contributed more than the paperwork suggests.

When a relationship ends

Property disputes, financial claims and the rules that apply when unmarried couples separate.

If one of you dies

An unmarried partner has no automatic right to inherit. We can help you protect each other properly.

Get in touch Family Law FAQs

A different set of rules from divorce.

If you live together, or you’re about to, we can explain plainly where you each stand and what you might want to put in place. If your relationship has ended, we can help you work out what you’re entitled to, which follows a very different set of rules from divorce and is often more complicated. Either way we start in the same place, by getting a clear picture of who owns what and what each of you could reasonably expect.

Where we can help

Cohabitation agreements

A binding agreement recording how you share costs and what happens to your home and belongings if you separate.

Property and ownership

Establishing who owns what share of a home, including where one of you has contributed more than the paperwork suggests.

When a relationship ends

Property disputes, financial claims and the rules that apply when unmarried couples separate.

If one of you dies

An unmarried partner has no automatic right to inherit. We can help you protect each other properly.

What a cohabitation agreement covers.

A cohabitation agreement is the simplest way to head off arguments neither of you can foresee. It can set out how you split the rent or mortgage and the bills, how you handle repairs and improvements, what happens to furniture, vehicles and gifts, what happens to a jointly owned home if you go your separate ways, what happens to savings, pensions and life policies if one of you dies, and what you would want to do if you had children.

None of it is romantic, sure, but it is far easier to agree while you’re on good terms than to unpick later.

If your relationship has already ended.

The position depends on how your home is owned, what each of you put in and what was agreed between you, whether or not any of that was ever written down. The rules are technical, and the answer often isn’t what people expect, so it’s worth talking to someone before you agree anything or move out.

Not sure where you stand?

Because an unmarried partner has no automatic right to inherit, it’s worth reading our Wills & Estate Planning page alongside this one, and if you own a home together our Residential Conveyancing team can advise on how it’s held.

Get in touch and we’ll talk it through with you, in confidence and without any pressure.