In a world where traditional marriage is no longer the only option, people are worryingly ignorant about their rights.

1. Common Law Marriage – not marriage at all
Despite numerous recent media reports about civil
partnerships for heterosexual partners and pension
rights for cohabitees, an extraordinary number of
people still don’t realise how limited their rights are
when they live together.
From tenancy rights to child arrangement orders,
people still adhere to the old view that after a couple of
years of cohabiting, they are in a Common Law
Marriage and that this gives them the same rights as a
conventional marriage. There even seems to be an idea
that Civil Partnerships between homosexual couples has
somehow pushed the rights acquired through marriage
out into every type of relationship.
In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Law
firm Mills and Reeve recently conducted a survey which
showed that 35% of cohabitees thought that they had
the same rights as married couples (or didn’t know),
whilst 76% had never heard of cohabitation agreements
and a mere 2% had one in place. With cohabitation in
the UK having grown from 1.5m to 3.5m over the ten
years to 2016, this represents a substantial proportion
of the population.
When it comes to death, cohabitees had very little idea
about what the law allows. For example a tenancy in
common allows a 50:50 split in ownership of property,
regardless of the individual contribution made
financially by each party. It also allows the share of the
deceased’s property to go to the survivor, regardless of
their will. Conversely, without a will or any kind of
agreement, Common Law spouses may find that they
have few or no rights, especially if there are former
spouses or children. Either way, the tax arrangements
for unmarried parties are disadvantageous compared to
those for married couples.
Whatever your views on the advantages of marriage as
an institution for family life, the growth in cohabitation
as a cultural norm is not going away any time soon and
funeral professionals, along with lawyers, financial
advisers and others, need to understand the limitations
and potential difficulties inherent when dealing with
people who have not only been bereaved, but who
have also discovered that their rights were quite
different to what they had imagined.
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