What Rights do I Have to my Partner’s Assets if we’re not Married?
If you’re not married and you and your partner split up, you won’t have many rights to their assets. Even if you’ve lived together for a long time, you have children and have bought a home together, the only way to get exactly the same legal protection over your assets as marriage gives you, is to get married.
These next few sections cover what rights you do have to the main assets that you’re likely to share as a couple, and also what things you can do to protect yourself as much as possible, should the worst-case scenario happen.
What Rights do I Have to my Property if we’re not Married?
The biggest asset you’re likely to share when you’re in a committed relationship is your home. You want to make sure that you’re not left without a roof over your head, or out of pocket.
What happens to you and your home after you split will depend on the following:
- Whether you own your home or you’re renting it
- If you own it, whose name is on the property deeds, or if you own it jointly
- Whose been paying the mortgage, bills or any other costs associated with the property
What Happens if you are Joint Homeowners?
If you’ve bought the property and own it jointly, so both of your names are on the property ownership papers, you should be able to keep living there and also be entitled to half the value of the property. This is regardless of how much money you contributed to it when you bought it.
What Happens if Your Home is Owned by Your Partner?
If you share your home but it’s in your partner’s name, you won’t have any automatic rights to stay there or receive a share of the sale proceeds.
But you may be able to fight this if you’ve contributed to mortgage payments, bills, or any renovation work. Our team of Family Law Solicitors are on hand to help and support you through the process if this is a situation you find yourself in.
What Happens if you’re Renting Your Home?
It works in a similar way if you’re renting your home, unfortunately. If the tenancy agreement is in your partner’s name, then you won’t have an automatic right to live there once you split.
You can apply for what’s called an Occupation Order from the Court, which might allow you to stay living there, even if your partner wants you to move out. But applying for one isn’t always easy as there are a lot of different factors that need to be considered.