benefits of being married vs living together

NewHome13

Thanks to everyone for their replies so far.

I am getting the impression that if we choose not to marry there is a lot of additional paperwork to sort out to have at least vaguely similar rights. And we would mainly be impacted should something horrible happen to one of us (i.e Widowed Parent's Allowance / Bereavement Payments).

While at the moment we would not be eligible for the Income Tax Marriage Allowance, this could change in the future I suppose. I am a little confused about the Inheritance Tax issue. I don't expect that we are going to become particularly wealthy, but would I be right in thinking that individually we have a threshold of £325,000. If we marry we have a joint threshold of £750,000. If one of us were to die, the other would retain the joint threshold of £750,000?

p00hsticks

NewHome13 wrote: »

Thanks for your reply. I know that this is the case, but even a RO ceremony costs money and takes a bit of planning and organisation.

I wouldn't have anything against a tiny RO ceremony, but I don't really have anything for it either if you see what I mean?

We've just done it - it cost around £150 in total (around £70 for the two of us to give the required notice / proof of id, and £80 for the actual ceremony and certificate). The meeting to give notice took about an hour, the ceremony five minutes!

We'd been living together happily for 25+ years but were prompted to marry as we are approaching retirement age and realised that we would only get dependants pensions from each others defined benefit pensions if we were married. Nowadays, if you are lucky enough to get a DB pension I think some of them - such as the Civil Service - allow you to specify that you have a long term partner.

Apart from that, we've never come across a reason to be married. Although I think I might have felt differently if we'd had children.

libra10

No-one has mentioned the downside of marriage. If things go wrong, it's much more difficult and costly to split up and divorce.


Good luck with your decision.

NewHome13

p00hsticks wrote: »

Apart from that, we've never come across a reason to be married. Although I think I might have felt differently if we'd had children.

I think part of me thinks we could always just do it later if we have a good reason. Do you mind if I ask why you might have felt differently had you had children?

Brighton_belle

SuperHan wrote: »

You could get a power of attorney over health and financial matters. There's a small cost to this, but it would empower your partner to make decisions on your behalf if you were unable.
.

It's a good idea for everyone to have PofA done , married or not. But they are actually much more expensive than the two of you just getting married in a registry office without frills.
But PofA's do give your nominated person more powers to sort your affairs if you are incapacitated than being married does.

esmy

Mojisola wrote: »

If you aren't going to get married -
make wills,
send letters to your GPs and local hospital nominating each other as NOK
and/or
print off NOK cards and carry them with you
http://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/files.royalfree.nhs.uk/next_of_kin002.pdf

I would add to this:
If you make wills ensure that you explain your circumstances. There is a phrase that is in our wills that does not make them void if we did marry.
Check the terms of any pension scheme you are each in and nominate your partner as beneficiary if you can do so.
Consider how you would own any house you buy - if you are joint tenants and one dies the other owner inherits the property, not necessarily the case if you are tenants in common.

Mojisola

esmy wrote: »

If you make wills ensure that you explain your circumstances. There is a phrase that is in our wills that does not make them void if we did marry.

This would only be applied if the marriage took place within a reasonable period of time after the wills were made.

If years pass before a marriage happens, make new wills.

p00hsticks

NewHome13 wrote: »

I think part of me thinks we could always just do it later if we have a good reason. Do you mind if I ask why you might have felt differently had you had children?

Just because I'm of an age where children whose parents weren't married were commonly (and technically correctly) referred to as 'B*stards' and I woudn't want that for my children. It may be different nowadays, given the amount of children born out of wedlock.

p00hsticks

libra10 wrote: »

No-one has mentioned the downside of marriage. If things go wrong, it's much more difficult and costly to split up and divorce.

I'm not sure how true that is - I think it's more down to how entangled your affairs are and how amicable the split is than whether you are married or not. There are regular posts on the House Buying, Selling and Letting board from unmarrieds who have split from their partners but cannot agree what should happen to the jointly owned house. I don't think that them not being married makes things any easier.

Gloomendoom

libra10 wrote: »

No-one has mentioned the downside of marriage. If things go wrong, it's much more difficult and costly to split up and divorce

That is also one of the upsides. The difficulty and expense arise because a court has to agree that the financial and child custody arrangements (if applicable) are fair to both parties. That agreement is then legally binding. As far as I am aware, that protection does not exist for unmarried couples.