UNMARRIED couples will receive greater rights, including laws to end the injustices suffered when relationships break up, in a shake-up of the law to be announced within two weeks, The Times has learnt.
The Law Commission will announce a study of how to improve the rights of the growing number of people living together without marrying, which has now reached two million couples and is expected to increase to 3.8 million by 2031.
Previous attempts to review the law have been opposed by Tory backbenchers and church groups, limiting reforms solely to property rights.
The review, commissioned by the Lord Chancellor, is likely to face criticism that greater rights for cohabitees will undermine marriage.
Church of England traditionalists are expected to fight the plans. A church insider agreed that there would be opposition and a spokesman said: “The Church believes that marriage has a unique role and is important for society and the raising of children. We would not wish to see this diluted, but strengthened by government policy.”
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But the General Synod has recognised that cohabiting couples need to be protected, and the Rev Simon Stanley, vicar of St Chad’s, York, who proposed the motion, said that it was not just unmarried heterosexual couples who needed protection. Others, such as sisters or carers and the person whom they are caring for, also needed legal rights.
Dominic Grieve, the Shadow Attorney-General, said that the Conservatives accepted that the law needed to be reviewed but would oppose a move to give cohabitants equal rights to married couples.
But ministers are concerned about the disadadvantages suffered by unmarried couples.
Many people wrongly believe that if they live together they eventually acquire legal rights akin to those of married couples — the myth of “common law” marriage.
Research in 2000 found that 59 per cent of cohabitees believed that common law wives and husbands had rights similar to married couples.
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But an unmarried partner has no right to claim financial support from the other partner, no matter how long they have lived together, and no automatic right to a share of property held in the other’s name.
Cohabitees cannot inherit their partner’s assets free of inheritance tax, they do not always have parental rights, they are not automatically entitled to a share of assets after a split or to their partner’s pension after death. They do not count as legal next of kin.
Mark Harper, a leading family lawyer, said that the review would be welcome. “This is a golden opportunity for the Law Commission to bring the law in line with society’s attitudes.”
He added that reforms would be unlikely to undermine marriage, with the numbers of cohabitees and divorces both rising. “The current law for cohabitants is unfair, unjust and illogical. Cohabitants are stuck with a 19th-century property law which is backward-looking, to resolve property disputes between them. It does not consider their current situation or needs, let alone what is fair.”
Providing new legal protection for unmarried couples is not formal government policy. But The Times has learnt that ministers are concerned about the lack of safeguards for them and the effects on children.
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The Law Commission will produce proposals for legislation in England and Wales. The two-year project is expected to begin in July, with initial proposals next spring and a draft Bill by the summer of 2007.
Later this year, gay partners will be able to register as civil partnerships, giving them many of the rights conferred by marriage. But unmarried heterosexual couples have virtually no legal redress if their relationship ends.
Stuart Bridge, the law commissioner leading the project, said that the idea was not to give cohabitees the same rights as married partners, but to give them some protection. The key issue, he said, was “how to deal with financial hardship when a relationship breaks down”. The project will also look at what happens when a partner dies.
Similar laws have been enacted in Australia and Canada, and in New Zealand “de facto” spouses have almost all the rights of married partners.
The move coincides with a survey seen by The Times of more than 2,000 divorcees that indicates growing support for pre-nuptial agreements.
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With one in three marriages ending in divorce, couples who marry are increasingly recognising that any break-up will be less costly and swifter with such an agreement.
Sandra Davis, head of family law at Mishcon de Reya, said: “It is better to be safe than sorry. It may not sound romantic but an agreement forces couples to prepare for the practicalities if things do go wrong.”
Such agreements do not have the force of law but courts will take them into account in a divorce settlement, she said.
COMMON LAW MYTHS
In fact, unmarried partners