Martin Lewis: Is being married financially worth it? The nine big benefits and how to use them...

MSE_Sally

This is the discussion to link on the back of Martin's blog. Please read the blog first, as this discussion follows it:

https://blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2025/01/martin-lewis--the-nine-big-financial-benefits-of-being-married

formerchef

Appreciate Martin is trying to give sound financial advice as always, however I’d be concerned about advising people to marry for economic or other reasons, without mentioning the potentially horrific costs of divorce. The costs of any divorce, whether there are children or not, a dispute or not, almost always outweigh the benefits of marriage. I’m not saying, don’t do it, that’s not my business, I’m saying be aware of this. I speak from experience. 

Urmston_Linda

My husband and I have all our finances in common and access them as we wish. Because I was at home with the children and subsequently did mostly voluntary work my finances are much less than those in his name. (I have a basic state pension but we have always planned to live off his larger  drawdown fund. ) .
 I have recently discovered that if he needs care he will have to pay for it out of this fund which could end up leaving me with not enough to live on. (Conversely he would not have to pay for any care that I might need.) If we were to divorce I would get half his pension but it seems that as we are married I am not entitled to this as he can’t transfer it to me while he is alive.  Any advice would be gratefully received as he is currently in poor health and I can forsee myself left with just a minimum income. 

XRAT

My question is similar to Urmston_Linda above, I'm happily married, I hope my wife is too.
I worked, she raised a family, we struggled on one wage and one personal allowance to support a family. She has a small pension, we squirrelled most of our savings into my pension having received sound advice on the M.S.E. pension forum (Respect to DunstonH)
Due to the growth of Nvidia, I have a pension beyond our dreams, but can still only utilise one personal allowance and one tenth of the first part of the other (marriage allowance.)
Is our only option to divorce, split the pension and remarry? By my calculations the difference between two £50k incomes and one £100k income is around £15k tax saved every year.

caprice63

I’m totally in agreement with the issue about pensions.  When drawing pensions both partners should be able to pool their full personal tax-free allowance and use it against either partner's pension drawdown.
Another disadvantage to being married is the fact that it is only possible to own one property without the burden of additional stamp duties and capital gains when buying and selling a second property.

Robinson2s

If I had known the true financial cost of divorce, I would’ve never married. Given that so many marriages fail, we should educate children about the true cost rather than pretend divorce doesn’t happen. There’s so much social pressure to marry and biggest mistake anyone can make

coey

May have been worth putting specific emphasis on recent budget changes re pensions and IHT. My partner and I have been together for 40 years and despite me having a fair size pension pot [I'm currently retired in drawdown] we were free of the risk of IHT......post budget my partner and our offspring were going to be liable for up to £120,000 IHT. Lots of people think there is no need to act until 2027 but to protect inherited IHT free allowance you need to act immediately.....needless to say we are now in a civil partnership.

F1nanc3Kid

Good article but there seems to be an incorrect point (or the word "not" is missing by accident):

"While any savings and investments kept inside tax-free ISAs are exempt from inheritance tax..."

This is not the case, other than when any spousal allowances apply as per all other things.

pcwsalisbury

Quote - "8. You can inherit your spouse's ISA allowance.   While any savings and investments kept inside tax-free ISAs are exempt from inheritance tax..."
News to me, wish it were so!

MC_DeltaTheta

Those are all fantastic positives of marriage. But they are only of true value, if you enter into a marriage with financial equality at the start or stay together forever. If you enter into a marriage with financial inequality at the start, and you do not stay together, and then the person who started with the money loses half of their money. Bad plan!

grassmarket

Forgive me for suggesting - Martin may have omitted a significant financial dis-benefit to marriage in his recent blog?: CGT due on sale of second home. Co-habiting couples can each nominate a different property as their main home, whereas married couples may only have 1 joint main home. So if the 2nd home is sold, married couples must pay CGT & co-habitees don’t. 

The tax trend from recent governments is towards higher rates of CGT & lower exemptions, so the impact of this dis-benefit is increasing.

For many couples of course, this dis-benefit is irrelevant, or only comes to light after many years of marriage, when 1 partner inherits a property. So it’s too late to avoid & being married may already have provided many important financial benefits/protections. But if 2 property-owners meet later on in life, your best bet might be to stay single until just before you die!