Date published: 2006/05/31
The BBC says:
Unmarried couples who live together could win rights to share each other's wealth if they split up under proposals being unveiled.
Rights to a share of property and pensions, to claim maintenance and lump sums could be among new measures.
The law reform body the Law Commission is to publish a consulation on the proposal with a final report in 2007.
About four million people cohabit but do not have the rights of people who are married or in civil partnerships.
Some fear such measures would undermine the status of marriage.
Cohabitees could make the same financial claims as divorcees but on a less generous basis, under the proposals being considered by the independent body.
The commission suggests that the rights should apply to those who have lived together for a certain period or who have a child.
Lawyers have suggested the entitlements should apply after couples have lived together for two years although this is being consulted on.
Cohabitees can currently claim maintenance for a child but not for themselves.
Entitlement to inheritance and pensions are also among the areas being examined.
The Civil Partnership Act, introduced last year, offers similar legal and financial protection to gay couples.
The number of people who are living together instead of getting married is expected to double over the next 15 years.
Already more than three-quarters of couples live together before marriage, and one in four children is born to parents who are cohabiting.
About bloody time. Society (mostly at the behest of the religious control freaks) has stuck its head in the sand for far too long on this score, because the majority has been happy to persecute the minority, using pathetic pseudo-moral arguments (that somehow married people are inherently morally superior, which of course they are not).
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