The common law marriage myth: what unmarried couples need to know

It is one of the most widespread and dangerous myths in English law: the belief that living together for long enough makes you “common law” husband and wife, with rights like a married couple’s. It does not. No matter how many years you have been together, how many children you have raised, or whose name is on the front door, cohabiting gives you almost none of the automatic legal protections that marriage or civil partnership does. This guide explains what is actually true, what is changing in 2026, and how to protect yourself.

Is there such a thing as common law marriage?

No. There is no such thing as common law marriage in England and Wales, and there has not been for centuries. The length of a relationship makes no difference: a couple together for forty years has the same lack of automatic rights against each other as a couple together for forty days. The phrase persists in everyday use, and surveys repeatedly show that most people wrongly believe cohabiting couples gain marriage-like rights over time. That false belief is exactly what leaves people exposed, because they assume protection that does not exist and so never put real protection in place.

What rights do unmarried couples actually have?

Far fewer than most people expect. If you are not married or in a civil partnership, you have no automatic right to a share of your partner’s income, savings, pension or other assets simply because you lived together. There is no equivalent of the financial settlement a divorcing spouse can seek. If you separate, you each generally keep what is legally yours, and you cannot claim ongoing financial support for yourself from a former partner. The main areas where claims do exist are property you can show an interest in, anything to do with children, and limited claims if a partner dies, covered below.

What about the house? Property and beneficial interests

This is where most disputes arise. If you are both named on the title as joint owners, you each own a share, and how it is split depends on whether you hold it as joint tenants or tenants in common. The harder situation is where the home is in one partner’s sole name. The other partner has no automatic right to it, but they may be able to establish a “beneficial interest” if they contributed to the deposit, the mortgage, or significant improvements, and can show there was a common intention to share ownership.

These claims, brought under trust law, are fact-specific, expensive, and uncertain. They turn on what was said and done years earlier, which the two people often remember very differently. If you are unsure whether you might have a claim over a property in your partner’s name, our cohabitation property checker can help you think it through.

What happens if one of you dies?

The intestacy rules, which decide who inherits when someone dies without a will, do not recognise an unmarried partner at all. If your partner dies without a will, their estate passes to blood relatives: children, then parents or siblings. You could inherit nothing, even after decades together, and if the home was in their sole name you may have no automatic right to stay in it. The only fallback is a court claim under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975, available to a partner who lived with the deceased for at least two years, but that means litigation, at the worst possible time. We explain this in detail in our guide to who inherits when there is no will.

Children: where marriage makes no difference

When it comes to children, marital status is largely irrelevant. Decisions about where children live and how they share time with each parent are made on the same basis whether or not the parents married, with the child’s welfare as the court’s paramount concern. Child maintenance applies regardless of marriage, either parent can apply through the Child Maintenance Service. In some cases a parent can also apply to court under Schedule 1 of the Children Act 1989 for additional financial provision for a child, which can include housing. So while you cannot claim for yourself as an unmarried partner, provision for your children is a different matter.

The 2026 reform: what’s actually changing?

This area is under active review, and it is important to be accurate about where things stand. On 5 June 2026, the Ministry of Justice launched a ten-week consultation, A Fairer End to Relationships, which closes on 14 August 2026. Among other things, it proposes giving qualifying cohabitants, broadly, those who have lived together for at least three years or who have a child together, automatic rights to inherit under the intestacy rules, bringing them closer to the position of spouses, along with new financial claims on separation.

As of mid-2026, however, none of this is law. It is a consultation, not a change in the rules. After it closes, the government will consider the responses and then decide whether to legislate, a process that could take months or years, and similar proposals in 2011 and 2018 were not taken forward. So while reform may be coming, you cannot rely on it yet. If anything, the gap between what people assume and what the law actually provides makes acting now more important, not less.

How unmarried couples can protect themselves

The good news is that cohabiting couples can put solid protection in place quite simply:

• A cohabitation agreement records how you will deal with property, finances and other practical matters during the relationship and if it ends. Properly drawn up with independent advice, the courts will generally uphold it.
• A declaration of trust records exactly what share each of you owns in a property, removing the uncertainty that causes most cohabitation property disputes.
• A will is the only way to make sure your partner inherits from you, since intestacy will not provide for them. Many cohabiting couples make mirror wills leaving their estates to each other.

Putting these in place at the outset is far cheaper and easier than untangling a dispute later.

How we help

Our cohabitation team advises unmarried couples across South Wales and the South West, on agreements and declarations of trust to set things up safely, and on resolving property and financial disputes if a relationship ends. For a plain-English overview of the differences between marriage and living together, Citizens Advice has a helpful guide to living together and marriage. To talk through your situation, request a callback and we will come back to you.