Closest thing to "civil partnership" for couple who are not same-sex.

Tygermoth

missbiggles1 wrote: »

Where else would you register legal paperwork except in a registry office? Where do you expect to register a civil partnership?

Sorry I was not clear - a ceremony at a registry office - I believe you can not just rock up and hand over signed paperwork for a registry wedding- regardless we would be married. Thus a change of status.


I would like to just register my wishes for my partner to have some legal say re pensions, illness and housing issues. That is all.


We do not wish to be married, we never have. Hopefully in the future there will be an accommodation that will allow this.

burnoutbabe

even with a civil partnership, most people would just say you were married if they knew (I refer to people who are CP as this and also I'd refer to their partner as their husband/wife)

So you'd also not be able to tell anyone you had a CP if it was even available and people would still think "ah you are married" - only situation you would not really is if it was clearly 2 friends doing it for some tax benefit.

mai_taylor

Tygermoth wrote: »

Sorry I was not clear - a ceremony at a registry office - I believe you can not just rock up and hand over signed paperwork for a registry wedding- regardless we would be married. Thus a change of status.


I would like to just register my wishes for my partner to have some legal say re pensions, illness and housing issues. That is all.


We do not wish to be married, we never have. Hopefully in the future there will be an accommodation that will allow this.

So you would like a system that cuts out all the love and commitment side of a marriage and just includes the legal side? I hope this is never allowed.

Person_one

Tygermoth wrote: »

We do not wish to be married, we never have. Hopefully in the future there will be an accommodation that will allow this.

i can't imagine that there ever would be. How could a government ever justify the cost to public finances of setting up and maintaining an alternative to marriage for people who want all the effects of a marriage without the title or the 'ceremony'? Why would they bother just to appease a tiny number of people who aren't able for whatever reason to separate the cultural and legal aspects of the perfectly fit for purpose arrangement that already exists to formalise domestic partnerships?

HanSpan

Tygermoth wrote: »

Sorry I was not clear - a ceremony at a registry office - I believe you can not just rock up and hand over signed paperwork for a registry wedding- regardless we would be married. Thus a change of status.


I would like to just register my wishes for my partner to have some legal say re pensions, illness and housing issues. That is all.


We do not wish to be married, we never have. Hopefully in the future there will be an accommodation that will allow this.

I think we are on exactly the same page!
Power of Attorney will give you most of the benefits you (and I) are looking for. The paperwork looks terrifying but if there's just two of you and no-one else to bother about its pretty easy to do online. Just don't print it first - I did and nearly had a total brain meltdown!

If you do it online its one of the few online tools on the Govt website that actually leads you through the process and eliminates loads of bits depending on what you choose early on. So if its just you and your SO its pretty quick. You just need one extra person who isn't family to say you understand what you are doing.

There's two - a health one and a financial one. The latter has an extra choice of whether you want it to become active immediately or just if you are incapable. Otherwise they are the same. The only think that has stopped us completing ours is trying to sort out who would have the power if we were both to be in an accident and thereofre the other one couldn't take charge. With no close family its a tricky one as it is alot to ask of friends.

Once you've done it you pay £110 for each (so £440 for all 4 for two of you) and send them off and you eventually get one back with an embossed seal. Then you just need to keep them very safe so you can send them off if you ever need to.

Oh its also worth the tedium of doing a few copies of each with the required wording and a signature scribbled at the bottom of every page so if they have to be used you needn't pay for certified copies rather than sending off the originals.

Hope that helps.

Person_one

HanSpan wrote: »

That was what I thought they were talking about but the link they gave, in the post I was answering, was to an article about the cost to the government of making state pension the same for both civil partnerships and marriages.

Mind you the same document appears to show pretty much the same thing for other pensions as far as I can see. Unless it has errors in it (which is always possible) it appears to show that the rules are the same for those in civil partnerships as for a married man - even in occupational pensions.

Survivor benefits – occupational pension schemes
Marriage:
Where an occupational pension scheme provides discretionary survivor benefits, schemes are permitted to only take into account the rights accrued from the date the Civil Partnership Act came into force (5 December 2005).
Where an occupational scheme is contracted out[1], schemes are required to pay surviving spouses of either gender half of the Guaranteed Minimum Pension (GMP) accrued based on the member’s accruals back to April 1988.

Civil Partnership
Where an occupational pension scheme provides survivor benefits, schemes are permitted toonly take into account the rights accrued from the date the Civil Partnership Act came into force (5 December 2005).
Where an occupational scheme is contracted out[1], schemes are required to pay surviving civil partners of either gender half of the Guaranteed Minimum Pension (GMP) accrued based on the member’s accruals back to April. 1988.

I can't cope with this!

Read that guardian article again, very very slowly...

HanSpan

mai_taylor wrote: »

[/B]

So you would like a system that cuts out all the love and commitment side of a marriage and just includes the legal side? I hope this is never allowed.

Civil Partnerships - where there are no required words and sex isn't part of the "contract" already exist - bu not for heterosexual couples, or at least not in the UK at the moment. 11 other European countries do have something like this, as a separate things from marriage, available to pretty much everyone.
There are an awful lot of us who would like to see that here, and hope the juducial review at the end of the month will result in exactly that.

duchy

mai_taylor wrote: »

[/B]

So you would like a system that cuts out all the love and commitment side of a marriage and just includes the legal side? I hope this is never allowed.

It is already allowed
The basic registry office ceremony makes no reference to love.

Marriage is a legal contract - two people merging assets present and future.

All the other stuff like love and white dresses and rings is simply social convention but it is allowed and perfectly legal to be married without them.

Most people who have registry office ceremonies have more than the bald legal minimum wording which is simply the couple confirming they are legally free to marry then confirming they want to be legally l husband and wife.

HanSpan

Person_one wrote: »

i can't imagine that there ever would be. How could a government ever justify the cost to public finances of setting up and maintaining an alternative to marriage for people who want all the effects of a marriage without the title or the 'ceremony'? Why would they bother just to appease a tiny number of people who aren't able for whatever reason to separate the cultural and legal aspects of the perfectly fit for purpose arrangement that already exists to formalise domestic partnerships?

There is already such a thing - Civil Partnerships - so no cost to set it up! Just minor cost to edit the wording so it does not exclude heterosexuals.
If they were to go the other way and get rid of civil partnerships all together I suspect that would cost far more in terms of changes to the law.

Its not a tiny number of people, there's actually quite a large campaign - http://equalcivilpartnerships.org.uk.
All the items I can find to read suggest the likelihood is taht the legal review will mean that civil partnerships are extended to heterosexual couples rather than abolished. They certainly will not be able to leave the situation as it is now so the result will be one or the other.

Plenty of other countries (11 European) recognise that many many people want to formalise their commitment without any of the baggage attached to marriage, and have a separate, modern, alternative option available.

duchy

Person_one wrote: »

i can't imagine that there ever would be. How could a government ever justify the cost to public finances of setting up and maintaining an alternative to marriage for people who want all the effects of a marriage without the title or the 'ceremony'? Why would they bother just to appease a tiny number of people who aren't able for whatever reason to separate the cultural and legal aspects of the perfectly fit for purpose arrangement that already exists to formalise domestic partnerships?

Indeed
I would have more sympathy if there was only one way to be married - for example if marriage ceremonies were only legal if you got married in a church but in Britain you can get married in just about any sort of building you please - church, government office, hotel, barn , historic building, dockyards, football pitches- even Napoleonic caves about a mile from my house

You can have long wordy ceremonies with or without religion with the world and his dog watching or short literally two statement declarations with no-one except the registrar and two (strangers if you want) witnesses present.

Something for everyone.