Cohabiting Couples and Separation: Why 'Common Law Marriage' Doesn't Exist

Nearly half of people in England and Wales - 47%, according to a 2026 government consultation - believe ‘common law marriage’ gives unmarried couples living together the same legal rights as marriage. It doesn’t exist in UK law at all, and the gap between belief and reality can be financially devastating when a long-term cohabiting relationship ends.

The myth, and the reality

However long you’ve lived together, however many children you share, and regardless of how you’ve organised your joint finances, cohabiting partners have no automatic legal rights to each other’s property, pension, savings, or income if the relationship ends - unlike divorcing spouses, who benefit from the full financial remedy framework covered elsewhere in this series, and whose marriage can only be ended through the formal courts process (see our guide to the no-fault divorce timeline).

What cohabiting partners genuinely don’t get

• No automatic right to spousal-style maintenance - if the relationship ends, there’s no equivalent of spousal maintenance for a cohabiting partner, however long the relationship or however much one partner sacrificed their own career or income during it.
• No automatic right to a partner’s pension - unless specifically named as a beneficiary on a pension provider’s nomination form (see our Pensions series article on this), a cohabiting partner has no claim on their partner’s pension at all, on separation or on death.
• No automatic share of property held in a partner’s sole name - even after years of living together and contributing to household costs, the partner who isn’t on the property’s legal title generally has no automatic share, though a claim may sometimes be possible under trust law (see below).

How property disputes are actually resolved for cohabiting couples

Rather than family law, disputes over a shared home between unmarried partners are dealt with under trust law - principally the Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996 (TOLATA) - a genuinely more complex, expensive, and less generous process than the discretionary family law approach used in divorce. A TOLATA claim generally requires evidence of a specific financial contribution or a clear common understanding about shared ownership, rather than the broader ‘needs and contributions’ assessment available on divorce.

Child maintenance still applies, regardless of marital status

One important exception: child maintenance obligations apply equally to unmarried parents - the CMS formula (see our dedicated article) doesn’t distinguish between separating spouses and separating cohabiting parents. What’s genuinely different is that there’s no equivalent spousal maintenance claim available to an unmarried partner themselves, only maintenance relating to the children.

How to protect yourself while cohabiting

• A cohabitation agreement - a legally recognised document setting out how property, finances, and other arrangements would be handled if the relationship ends, providing clarity that the default legal position doesn’t.
• A declaration of trust - a specific document recording exactly what share of a jointly owned (or solely owned but jointly funded) property each partner actually owns, which can prevent disputes about contributions being argued from scratch later.
• An up-to-date will - since cohabiting partners have no automatic inheritance rights under intestacy either (see our dedicated Inheritance series article on dying without a will), a will is the only way to ensure a partner inherits anything if you die without one.
• Checking pension nomination forms - ensuring a cohabiting partner is specifically named as a beneficiary with each pension provider, since this doesn’t happen automatically.

Change may be coming, but not yet

The government launched a consultation, ‘A Fairer End to Relationships’, on 5 June 2026 to the 14 August 2026, proposing a new statutory framework giving qualifying cohabiting couples (broadly, those together three years or more, or with a shared child, with no minimum duration in that case) some financial rights on separation, and inheritance rights if a partner dies without a will. Crucially, this is only a consultation - no law has changed, and any resulting legislation is not expected before 2028 at the earliest. See our dedicated article on what’s actually being proposed.

The bottom line

Right now, in 2026, cohabiting partners in England and Wales have dramatically fewer automatic rights than married couples if a relationship ends - ‘common law marriage’ is a genuine myth with real financial consequences. A cohabitation agreement, a declaration of trust, and an up-to-date will remain the only reliable protection while the law stands as it is.