Frank O'Donnell

If you are one of the two million couples who are cohabiting in this country then you should take notice of this article.

The Law Commission has recently reopened the controversial debate on inheritance, proposing that cohabiting couples rights are dramatically changed. It is being proposed to extent the inheritance rules that already apply to married couples, to cover cohabiting partners who have been living together for five years or more, or if there are children.

On the one side there are the several million dependents – mostly women and children but increasingly men, who want the changes to go ahead. 

On the other side there are those who have chosen deliberately not to marry – often because there are children or grandchildren from a previous marriage whom they want to inherit and don’t want that challenged, or because they don’t see the relationship as being permanent. 

These individuals are up in arms because even if they make a will leaving everything to their children, if it becomes the norm for a cohabitee to inherit, the will could be successfully challenged and the survivor inherit. 

 The moral issues that are also at stake are that marriage is a far greater commitment than just living with someone and the law should reflect that.

The new proposals would cover couples who have lived together for at least five years. And in the case of couples whom have lived together for less than five years but at least two years, there would be an automatic right to inherit half the estate.

For example, the surviving partner of an unmarried couple without children where they had lived together for two to five years would be entitled to half the estate. If they had lived together five years or more, they would be treated the same as a married couple and inherit the lot. The surviving partner of a cohabiting unmarried couple who had a child together would be treated as if married, even – if they’d lived together less than two years

Those who want the law changed argue that the current situation doesn’t reflect the reality of modern relationships and that requiring unmarried survivors to sue the estate of the deceased puts undue stress on them.  However, given that many people have multiple relationships with children from different partners there would still be disputes about inheritance.

Those who support the proposal say that the proposed change would downgrade the commitment of marriage.  Not everyone wants their partner to inherit and in many cases this was an important consideration in the decision whether to marry or live together.