(Untitled)

[shreena]

I think the various proposals that seem to be floating around about co-habiting couples are just madness and it really frustrates me that the only people arguing against them are slightly loopy "must protect family life" campaigners.  When quizcustodet and I got married, our legal rights and obligations within that contract were explained to us by the

Comments

[karen2205]

Because if it wasn't opt-in, it wouldn't protect those who fail to think/don't have the education to know better/are generally vulnerable. Theoretically, I would agree a better solution would be proper education that living together does not lead to gaining rights over someone's property, but in the real world people are stupid/careless/not well educated/vulnerable and do things like giving up their own property in the mistaken belief that they will gain rights over their partner's property should the relationship end/one of them die. At the moment we have a mismash of case law about resulting and construstive trusts where the courts have taken the view that someone who has say paid their co-habitant's mortgage for 10 years, should be entitled to a share in the value of the property. I do think a decision to pay someone else's mortgage in the expectation you'd get some rights over their property without checking the position with a solicitor/accountant is very unwise (I'd never have done it, even before I'd taken a law degree), but people do (and I have the benefit of intelligence/good education/being middle class) and it does seem right to protect people in that position, rather than leaving them with nothing. I don't know - maybe there is a better way to protect people who are currently in this sort of situation without going down the route the government seems to be taking. I might choose a system that requires all households of two or more people aged 18+ to complete a form where they either say 'don't want to property share', 'want to property share, but make our own arrangements', 'want to accept the statutory scheme' - requiring people to make an active choice is good IMO (I think the same thing re organ donation - people ought to be forced to say 'yes' or 'no' to it, rather than make no decision about it) and the statutory scheme could be arranged in such a way as to provide for adult siblings sharing a house or parents + grown up children sensibly.

I suspect housemates who share finances will need to opt-out, as would housemates who have sex occasionally, but I also suspect it will become common practice for letting agents to hand out opt-out forms/for people with shared houses to make signing one of these forms a condition of taking a room etc. so it won't be hard to avoid being bound.

I don't think the state is trying to assume it knows more than cohabiting couples, I think it is trying to find a least-worst solution that should sort-of-be-equitable for most people who can't be bothered/don't know to come up with their own one.