Cohabitation agreement solicitors

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At Moore Barlow, we understand that cohabitation can be a complex and sensitive issue.

Our team of experienced family lawyers are here to provide you with expert advice and guidance on all aspects of cohabitation, from drafting cohabitation agreements to resolving disputes. Cohabitation agreements provide peace of mind for unmarried couples living together, ensuring that their rights and responsibilities are clearly defined in the event of a separation or dispute.

  • If you are an unmarried couple living together (known as cohabiting), you have limited legal rights covering important financial aspects such as property.
  • A cohabitation agreement will help specify your rights if your relationship should break down.
  • The agreement needs to be properly drawn up to protect your interests, and we will produce a document that is clear and practical.

The law relating to cohabiting couples is completely different to the law for married couples. Some people believe that if you live together for a reasonable length of time, you become ‘common law’ husband and wife, with the same legal rights as people who are married or in a civil partnership. In English law, this is not true.

This can make life very difficult if you buy or rent a house or have children together, and your relationship ends. To avoid the problems and disputes this could bring, it’s wise to enter in to a cohabitation agreement (also known as a living together agreement) and to take specialist advice first from experienced cohabitation lawyers.

Joanna Farrands

Joanna Farrands

Partner | Family

01483 543223

What is a cohabitation agreement?

A cohabitation agreement is a legal agreement between individuals who are living together but are not married. A cohabitation agreement can set out the rights and responsibilities of the parties in relation to property, finances, and other matters, and can help to avoid disputes if the relationship breaks down.

What are the benefits of a cohabitation agreement?

A cohabitation agreement can set out what happens if your relationship breaks down. It helps give you certainty about the financial contributions both of you make during the relationship. For example, it can cover property you own or rent together, how you share the household bills and expenses and all your jointly owned assets, such as a car and furniture.

If you are both living in a property that only your partner owns, the agreement needs to stipulate whether you have a share in it, perhaps because you contribute to the mortgage or household bills. Without the protection of an agreement, you might find yourself with no rights and potentially no home. This is why it’s so important to help ensure your rights are protected with a cohabitation agreement (sometimes known as a living together agreement).

Your cohabitation agreement should also cover financial arrangements for children, whether they are children of you both or they are from a previous relationship. It’s essential the children are still supported financially if your relationship ends.

A cohabitation agreement needs to be practical, fair and reasonable, so it stands up to legal scrutiny if you separate. For this reason, it is best to have it drafted by lawyers experienced in drafting cohabitation agreements. With our experience of family law and relationships, we will create a cohabitation agreement that you are happy with, is workable and will be considered legally binding by the courts. Please bear in mind that we can only advise one of you, to avoid a possible conflict of interest. Your partner should have their own family lawyer check the cohabitation agreement too.

If you have a cohabitation agreement and later decide to get married, you can both stipulate the agreement should end when you’re married or that it stays in force. We can discuss this with you. We’ll also be happy to explain the benefits of pre-and post-marital agreements, which can give you continued certainty for the future.

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Buying a home together as a cohabiting couple

Whether you have a long or short-term relationship, buying a property together is an important step.

It should be covered in your cohabitation agreement if you have one. If you don’t have a cohabitation agreement, it is important the ownership of the property is recorded correctly so that if your relationship breaks down, you both get back the money that you intended. We can advise you on the legal documents required, and draw them up for you.

Why choose our cohabitation agreement solicitors?

Our cohabitation agreement solicitors at Moore Barlow provide expert guidance and support to clients seeking to establish clear legal arrangements for their cohabitation. With extensive experience in family law, our solicitors are well-equipped to navigate the complexities of cohabitation agreements and ensure that all parties involved are protected. We are committed to providing a personalised service that prioritises the needs and interests of our clients, making us the ideal choice for those seeking reliable and effective legal representation.

How can our cohabitation agreement solicitors help?

Let our cohabitation agreement solicitors can provide you with expert legal advice and guidance to help you navigate the complexities of cohabitation agreements. We can help you draft a comprehensive agreement that protects your interests and outlines the rights and responsibilities of each party. Our team is committed to providing you with personalised and effective solutions to ensure that your cohabitation agreement meets your unique needs and circumstances.

We have offices in LondonRichmondSouthamptonGuildfordLymington and Woking, and offer specialist support and expert family law advice to clients up and down the country. Contact us for more information on how we can help.

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Start an online enquiry by completing our short questionnaire.

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FAQs: Cohabitation

What is a cohabitation agreement?

A cohabitation agreement is a legal document between an unmarried couple who live together which outlines arrangements for finances, property and children in the event that the relationship breaks down.

This kind of agreement is designed to protect the rights of both partners in a fair way, as there are limited legal protections if the couple isn’t married or in a civil partnership.

A cohabitation agreement looks like many other legal documents and will outline who the agreement is between, as well as covering the details of any assets, property or children that the couple have and what should happen to them if the relationship breaks down in the future.

Cohabitation agreements don’t need to be lengthy documents, but should always be prepared by an experienced lawyer to ensure that the way in which it is written and the particulars included will pass legal scrutiny if needed in the future.

There might be several areas that you would want to include in a cohabitation agreement, depending on your circumstances. The document could outline what happens in each of these areas if you are to split up in the future:

  • Property owned by either partner before you moved in together i.e. in one person’s name and not the other. Most couples agree for this to remain separate.
  • Property that you might buy after you move in together, whether that’s a home that you live in together or any rental or commercial property.
  • Household expenses and how these will be divided between you.
  • What should happen to any inheritance or in your individual wills concerning the partner.
  • Children maintenance issues.

Cohabitation agreements can be legally binding, as long as they are written in a way that will stand up to legal scrutiny. This is why it’s recommended that a professional cohabitation agreement solicitor drafts up your agreement, to make sure that everything included is based in law and is in the most appropriate context.

If you are planning on cohabiting with someone that you are not married to and not in a civil partnership with, a cohabitation agreement can be very wise. It is designed as a layer of protection because of the lack of legal rights that cohabiting couples have otherwise.

Many cohabitation agreements will state that the agreement comes to an end if the couple marry or become civil partners at any point in the future. If this is not the case, a court may take the contents of a cohabitation agreement into account if you divorce or dissolve your civil partnership in the future, but it might be that many of the details or factors are no longer relevant and it would be just one of the matters to be considered.

It is fairly common for couples with a cohabitation agreement to dissolve this when planning to get married, but replace it with a pre-nuptial agreement instead, which outlines everything that either partner brings into the marriage in an up-to-date way and sets out what should happen if the marriage breaks down.

When a couple are unmarried, the financial claims are more limited. Usually, the first place to look is at the ownership of the property. If you appear as a joint owner at the Land Registry on the title deeds then it will be very difficult for your ex-partner to suggest that you do not have a claim.

The legal arguments become a little more complicated. The detail of how you arrange your financial affairs between you is likely to become very relevant. It is often the case that the person who is not on the title deeds will often contribute money towards the mortgage or pay for renovations or other improvements to the property. These scenarios can give rise to a claim over a property. If there are children involved, there may also be separate claims that can be made on behalf of the children against a former partner. The law in this area is particularly complicated and a specialist assessment of your particular circumstances is recommended.

If you remain unmarried during your relationship there are no additional rights that you acquire regardless of the length of time that you have been together. In short, common law husband or wife this is a myth. This only changes in the event that you have children between you. If there are minor children then financial claims can be made on their benefit.

Where there is a dispute over where the children will live following separation, there is no law or legal bias that means that children always stay with their mother. If the arrangements for the children cannot be agreed then most couples are encouraged to try Mediation. However, if this breaks down or one parent feels they should have ‘custody’ of the children then the decision can be made by a Judge. Unless there are some serious safeguarding issues, a Judge is likely to make sure that children spend quality time with both of their parents. The best interests of the children are going to be the most important factor.

Children under the age of 18 cannot legally make the decision to live with one parent or another. If the parents cannot agree who should have ‘custody’ of the children then the matter will need to be decided by a Judge. As part of the court process, the Judge may want to understand the views of the child or children involved and who they say that they would like to live with. The younger the child, the less likely the court are going to seek their views.

However, the views of older children can be taken into account. A child’s views, no matter how old they are, are never decisive, just one factor to be taken into account by a Judge when making the ultimate decision. Children do not always know what is best for them and courts are aware that sometimes parents try and influence a child’s decision about where they want to live.

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