Cancer Diagnosis - advice on entering marriage or Civil partnership - pros & cons

Robin9

A friend of mine - having received a terminal diagnosis (prostrate) -  created a Full Stop sheet of paper.  He took a blank sheet of paper and put a Full Stop part way down the page.

Top of the list was to marry his long term partner, much of the good advice that has been spoken of above- plus the  bucket list of things to do.  

Special consideration must be given to his daughter - what arrangements would he want to happen ?   And what if his ex-wife /  you predecease him . A good talk to a solicitor who will go through the what ifs.

As time went by the list list got longer - must find the documents for this and that, insurances etc; funeral plans were added and the Full Stop moved down the page.

gwynlas

You would need to attend a registry office to apply for either even if ceremoney elsewhere. In terms of explanations to anyone in the future marriage is the most conveniently understood term as opposed to civil partnership. Both have fiscal benefits. We just had a ceremony and meal out with witnesses, no name changes or anyone else involved. Wills can be written in anticipation of marriage if you wish to do that sooner. LPAs for health and finance are useful but I think that the majority of couples still do not bother. 29 February is traditonallywhen women can ask men if that bothers you.

Savvy_Sue

Without a will, if he dies first, his daughter will have to apply for letters of admin, unmarried partners can't do that.

Write the wills 'in contemplation of marriage' and they'll be entirely valid. But the potential IHT bill remains.

silvercar

theoretica said:

For right to talk to hospitals, get LPA in place if you haven't already.

There is a complication for married couples around owning separate houses - for council tax and maybe stamp duty the couple can only have one principal residence between them.

Will his estate exceed the inheritance tax levels if left to his daughter?

This is the only financial problem I can see. You have 2 years to declare which home is to be your joint principle private residence and you can change that if you wish with new declarations. You would still have some allowance for the time it was your main residence, so not all the gain would be subject to CGT. There is no CGT on death, so if the home of the person expected to live longest was declared to be the PPR, and the other home was not sold before death of the owner, there would be no CGT to pay on it at that point. It would then be inherited at the value at the date of death. 

luckbox

Myself and my partner are mid 40s and been together since our late 20s. We got a civil partnership done in 2022 as our combined assets were getting bigger. Two appointments and it was over with. No names were changed and now we know that our assets will go to the right place if one of us passes away and inheritance tax is avoided for now. 

Kynthia

I would recommend making an appointment with a solicitor to go through potential and unintended consequences of marriage. However other posters have covered a lot that I'm aware of.

Does your partner have a defined benefit pension scheme? It sounds like he does and standard defined contribution pension schemes are a pot of money that can be inherited by anyone of their choosing but DB pensions often only pay out an annual amount to spouses, sometimes unmarried partners that meet certain conditions, and dependant age children.

It would be worth checking the scheme rules as his daughter might be entitled to a small percentage each year until she finishes education.