Around 3.6 million couples in the UK live together unmarried, and surveys keep finding that nearly half believe "common-law marriage" gives them rights after a few years together. It does not, because it does not exist. In England and Wales the law recognises married couples, civil partners, and legal strangers. If you are not in the first two categories, you are in the third, however long you have shared a mortgage, a surname or children.
What happens if one of you dies without a will
The intestacy rules distribute the estate of anyone who dies without a will, and an unmarried partner appears nowhere in them. Everything passes to children, parents or siblings instead. The surviving partner can be left unable to stay in the home they lived in, watching the estate go to relatives, sometimes estranged ones, while they inherit nothing at all.
The fallback is a claim under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975, available to a partner who cohabited for the two years before the death. It is real, and it is also everything a grieving person does not need: a court application, legal fees, delay measured in years, an uncertain outcome, and a fight conducted against the deceased’s own family.
The home: check how you own it today
For most couples the house is the estate, and the way it is owned decides where it goes. Joint tenants: the survivor inherits the whole property automatically, outside any will. Tenants in common: each partner owns a distinct share, and that share passes under their will, or under intestacy if there is none. Plenty of couples do not know which they are; the Land Registry title says. If you are tenants in common without wills, half the home may be heading to your partner’s next of kin.
Three more gaps marriage would have papered over
- Inheritance tax: everything passing between spouses is tax-free; everything passing to an unmarried partner counts against the £325,000 nil-rate band, so larger estates face a bill a married couple would not
- Pensions and death-in-service: many schemes pay whoever is nominated on file; an old form naming a parent or an ex overrides everything you intended, so check every nomination
- Decisions in a crisis: an unmarried partner has no automatic say in medical decisions if you lose capacity, which is what a lasting power of attorney exists to fix
What to actually do
Two mirror wills naming each other are the core of it: with a will, your partner inherits exactly what you choose, no court claim required. Check the house title and the pension nominations while you are at it, and note one final trap: if you later marry, marriage automatically revokes existing wills unless they were made in contemplation of it, so say so when you make them if a wedding is a possibility.
With Willful, mirror wills cost £99 per partner, each of you answers your own interview, and every will is reviewed by a named, SRA-regulated solicitor. For an unmarried couple it is not an optional tidy-up. It is the entire safety net.