Island Life Magazine Ltd October/November 2015 | Page 149
LEGAL
Roach Pittis advice
By Janet Bell
Roach Pittis Solicitors,
60 - 66 Lugley Street, Newport, PO30 5EU
01983 524431
[email protected]
No such thing as
‘Common law spouse’
S
ix out of every ten couples who live
together believe that they have the
same protection as married couples
if they split up. They don’t. The myth of
common law marriage and the fact that
many official bodies refer to people living
together as ‘husband or wife’, means that
many people who live together are not
aware that they have no rights when their
relationships end.
In July 2015 the Office for National
Statistics released figures that in 2014
around one in eight adults in England
and Wales were living as a couple but
were not married or in a civil partnership;
cohabiting is most common in the 30 34 age group.
Often people separating from their
live-in partners want a fair share of the
assets, but discover that they have no
rights whatsoever. Even if one partner
has given up work to care for children,
or has contributed by supporting their
partner in their career by running the
home, often their contributions will not
be recognised in law, especially if the
children have already grown up and
left home. They discover that the belief
that unmarried couples have rights as
‘common law’ spouses, is not correct.
The Family Lawyers Association
Resolution is campaigning for the
introduct