Common law marriage rights in the UK

No legal status called common law marriage

There is no legal definition of living together, and common law partner is just another way of saying a couple live together. No length of cohabitation converts that into a status.

Cohabiting couple families rose from 3.1 million in 2014 to 3.5 million in 2024, 17.7% of all families.

Married against cohabiting, right by right

The question	Married or civil partners	Living together
A duty to support the other financially	Each partner owes it	Neither owes it
Inheritance without a will	A fixed net sum of £322,000 first	Nothing, unless the property was owned jointly
Inheritance tax on what passes to the survivor	No tax on what is left to a spouse	40% above £325,000
An unused tax threshold	Transferable	Not transferable
Income tax	£1,260 of allowance transferable, worth up to £252 a year	Not available
A home held in the other’s name	Rights of occupation	Usually no right to stay if asked to leave

Cohabitants claiming Universal Credit, Income Support, income-related ESA, income-based JSA or Pension Credit are treated as a couple on joint income. The state counts the relationship for what it pays out and not for what it passes on.

There is no cohabiting equivalent of the financial order that follows a divorce, which costs £321, or £62 by consent.

The 2 year rule for a claim against an estate

A cohabitant appears nowhere in the intestacy order, so a survivor inherits nothing automatically unless the couple owned property jointly.

The way back in is the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975. Section 1(1A) opens it to someone who, for the whole of the 2 years ending immediately before the death, lived in the same household as the deceased as if they were a married couple or civil partners. Section 1(1)(e) is a second door, needing no 2 years, for anyone the deceased was maintaining wholly or partly.

Both doors lead somewhere narrow. For an applicant who is not a spouse or civil partner, reasonable financial provision means maintenance only, and no application may be made without the permission of the court more than 6 months after representation is first taken out, meaning from the grant, not the death.

Inheritance tax at 40% with no partner exemption

The threshold is £325,000, with 40% charged above it, and there is normally no tax where everything above it goes to a spouse, a civil partner, a charity or a community amateur sports club. A cohabitant is not on that list.

An unused threshold transfers only between spouses and civil partners. Two reliefs do not turn on marriage at all, since the threshold can rise to £500,000 where a home passes to children or grandchildren, and the rate falls to 36% where 10% or more of the net estate goes to charity.

Bereavement Support Payment, damages and tenancy succession

What it is	What a cohabitant gets	The qualifying test
Bereavement Support Payment	£3,500 plus 18 monthly payments of £350	Getting Child Benefit for a child living with them, entitled to it, or pregnant when the partner died
Bereavement damages	£15,120 in England and Wales	A death caused by a wrongful act, and the same household for at least 2 years before it
Succession to an assured periodic tenancy	The tenancy passes to the survivor	Living with the tenant as if a married couple

The payment is not means-tested, and living together as if married qualifies. The child condition is the catch, because a married claimant without it still drops to £2,500 plus 18 monthly payments of £100, while a cohabitant without it gets nothing. A claim within 3 months of the death brings all 18 payments, and after 21 months there is usually nothing.

Bereavement damages turn on liability, since the Fatal Accidents Act 1976 bites only where a death was caused by a wrongful act, neglect or default, so an illness carries no award. Cohabitants were added to that section on 6 October 2020. Tenancy succession needs no wrongdoer and no court, because section 17(4) of the Housing Act 1988 treats a survivor who lived with the tenant as if married as the tenant’s spouse.

The home, joint tenants against tenants in common

How the title is held decides what happens to the home. Joint tenants have equal rights to the whole property, which passes automatically to the other owner on death and cannot be left by will. Tenants in common hold shares that do not pass automatically and can be left by will. Changing from one to the other carries no fee at HM Land Registry.

Where the shares are disputed, section 14 of the Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996 lets anyone with an interest in the land ask the court to declare its extent. It extends to England and Wales only, and issuing a non-money claim costs £387 in the county court and £663 in the High Court.

Children, parental responsibility and the £270 application

Both parents owe the costs of raising their children whatever their marital status, while a child is under 16 or under 20 in approved education or training. Parental responsibility turns on paperwork. The birth mother holds it automatically, an unmarried father or second female parent acquires it by jointly registering the birth with the mother, a route running in England and Wales since 1 December 2003, and a step parent gets nothing by marrying a child’s parent.

Births must be registered within 42 days, and where both parents cannot attend there are two other routes onto the certificate, a statutory declaration of parentage or a court order.

Capital for a child is where an unmarried parent has weight. Schedule 1 to the Children Act 1989 lets the court order periodical payments, a lump sum, a settlement of property for the child’s benefit or a transfer of property, though only one settlement order and one transfer order can be made against the same person for the same child. The fee is £270, the same as an application for a child arrangements order.

Wills, declarations of trust and the £92 power of attorney

None needs a court, and each closes a gap that marriage would have closed by default. No document creates the inheritance tax exemption, which turns on marriage or civil partnership.

• A will. Intestacy contains no cohabitant, so a will is the only way an estate reaches a partner.
• A declaration of trust. What each partner put in, recorded at the time, is the evidence a section 14 application turns on.
• A lasting power of attorney. Registering with the Office of the Public Guardian costs £92 unless a reduction applies, takes 8 to 10 weeks, and binds only in England and Wales.

The reform consultation that closed on 14 August 2026

The Ministry of Justice published A fairer end to relationships on 5 June 2026. It closed at 11.59pm on 14 August 2026 and the feedback is still being analysed. It asks about a statutory framework of rights for eligible cohabitants at separation, which the government proposes should be narrower than divorce offers, and about reforming intestacy. None of it is law.

Cohabitation rights in Scotland and Northern Ireland

Scotland is the one place in the UK where common law marriage was real. Marriage by cohabitation with habit and repute was a rule of Scots law until section 3 of the Family Law (Scotland) Act 2006 ended it on 4 May 2006, saving only cohabitation that began earlier.

The question	England and Wales	Scotland	Northern Ireland
A claim on separation	None	A capital sum under section 28, within 1 year of separating	None
A claim on death	The 1975 Act, will or no will, within 6 months of the grant	Section 29, only on intestacy, within 6 months of the death	The 1979 Order, will or no will, within 6 months of the grant
Qualifying period	2 years	No fixed period	2 years
Spouse intestacy figure	£322,000 fixed net sum	Prior rights of £473,000, £29,000 and £50,000 or £89,000	£250,000 with issue, £450,000 where parents or siblings survive instead
Regulator	Solicitors Regulation Authority, service complaints to the Legal Ombudsman	Law Society of Scotland, complaints to the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission	Law Society of Northern Ireland

Part 3 of the 2006 Act gives Scottish cohabitants what the other two lack. Section 26 presumes, rebuttably, an equal share in household goods bought during the cohabitation, excluding money, securities, road vehicles and domestic animals, and section 27 splits housekeeping money and what it bought, though expressly not the home. Section 28 allows a capital sum, or a sum for the economic burden of caring for a child of the relationship, counts indirect and non-financial contributions, and is due within 1 year of the couple ceasing to cohabit.

A will leaving the survivor nothing defeats section 29, which bites only on intestacy, and the award can never exceed a spouse’s. Scotland fixes no bereavement sum. Section 4 of the Damages (Scotland) Act 2011 leaves it to what the court thinks just, and section 14 counts a cohabitant as a relative with no minimum period. The vocabulary is confirmation rather than probate and executry rather than estate administration, which is the language a firm on the Glasgow list works in. An unmarried father holds parental responsibilities and rights only if registered as the child’s father, a route open since 4 May 2006, and a power of attorney is a continuing or welfare power with no authority to act until registered with the Public Guardian. The sheriff court initial writ fee, where no other is specified, is £176 from 1 April 2026.

Northern Ireland is the hardest of the three, with neither the Scottish framework nor the English property route. The death claim sits in Article 3(1A) of the 1979 Order on the same 2 year same household test, and Article 6 sets the 6 month deadline. Under section 7 of the Administration of Estates Act (Northern Ireland) 1955 a surviving spouse takes the personal chattels plus £250,000 where there is issue, or £450,000 where there is no issue but parents or siblings survive.

An unmarried father there acquires parental responsibility by being registered as the child’s father, by agreement or by court order, a route open since 15 April 2002, the earliest of the three. Financial provision for a child sits in Schedule 1 paragraph 2, where only the High Court or a county court can order a settlement or transfer of property, and capacity is planned with an enduring power of attorney registered under Article 8, with no health and welfare equivalent. Firms on the Belfast list answer to the Law Society of Northern Ireland.