Have you thought about the legal differences between being married and living together? And how to ensure that you and your partner have good legal protection regardless of which one you choose? There are some differences depending on if you’re married or just living together. But luckily, there are also some legal measures you can take to protect your interests, regardless of your marital status.
When living together, you don’t inherit each other
This is important if you have children. If married, the surviving partner always inherits everything. If you have children together, this will be an advantage as it means that any residences, houses, cars and other assets can remain with the surviving partner. However, if you aren’t married and you have children together, the children will instead inherit the deceased parent in the first place. This means that the surviving parent in many cases needs to sell assets in order to pay out the children’s inheritance. Because of this, many find themselves in a difficult financial situation and are forced to move during a time when the sanctuary of the home and the safety of their own community are most important. To avoid such a scenario, writing a will to regulate the inheritance can be wise.
Joint assets when married or living together
Another important difference between being married or living together is the distribution of your assets. When being married, it’s assumed that everything you own together should be divided equally if you choose to separate. This is also called the right to marital property or community property, meaning that regardless of how much each of you has invested, it doesn’t affect how the assets are divided. Each gets half is what applies. However, if you are common-law partners, only part of your property is regarded as joint. Your home and the things you have bought while living together are considered what you own together. Everything else is considered private property.
Both in a marriage and when living together, however, it’s possible to control who owns what with certain legal documents. As married people, you can write a prenuptial agreement to prevent certain assets from being counted as joint. And as cohabitants, you can sign a cohabitation agreement. Both agreements can be signed before or after you have married/moved in together.
If you want to write a prenuptial agreement or cohabitation agreement, you can do it yourself here on our website. As long as you have a good grasp of your finances and any legal consequences, it’s simple and easy to set it up on your own. Otherwise you can get the help of a lawyer to ensure that the agreements really fulfill your wishes. Sometimes, for example, you may need to supplement your agreements with other documents, such as deed of gift or promissory note. To find out what applies in your case, the best is to consult a lawyer.
