There is no such thing as a common law wife. Plenty of couples still believe there is, and many only learn otherwise when the relationship ends or one partner dies. That may be about to change. On 5 June 2026 the Ministry of Justice published a consultation, A fairer end to relationships, which proposes giving unmarried couples who have lived together for at least three years a legal claim against each other when they separate.
The consultation closed on 14 August 2026 and the government is now considering the responses. Nothing has changed yet. But the direction is clear, and couples who live together should understand both where they stand today and what the proposals would mean for them.
The law today
Living together, however long, gives you no automatic financial rights against your partner in England and Wales. When a cohabiting couple separates, each person keeps what is in their own name. If you disagree about the home, the court decides who owns what under property and trust law (the Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996). The questions are technical ones. Whose name is on the title? What did you say to each other about shares at the time, and who paid what towards the purchase?
Contributions that matter a great deal in a marriage often count for very little here. Giving up a career to raise children is the obvious example. So is paying the household bills for years while your partner paid the mortgage. A court dealing with a divorce would take all of that into account. Between cohabitants, it usually cannot.
There is no maintenance for a former partner either. Child maintenance is payable, and a parent can apply for financial provision for a child, but that money is for the child.
Death is just as stark. If your partner dies without a will, you inherit nothing under the intestacy rules, however long you were together. Your only route is a claim under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975, which requires you to have lived together for the whole of the two years before the death, or to show that you were being maintained by your partner. These claims are slow and costly, and the outcome is never certain.
Who the new rules would cover
The proposals are aimed at adults in long-term, committed relationships who have lived together for at least three years. Couples who live together and have a child would also qualify, whatever the length of the relationship.
Sharing an address would not be enough on its own. The court would ask whether the two of you lived together as a couple in an enduring relationship, looking at matters such as a shared household, how you arranged your finances, responsibility for children and how you presented yourselves to family and friends.
Protection would apply automatically. Couples who do not want it could opt out, but only by a written agreement executed as a deed, after both have given financial disclosure and both have taken independent legal advice. Neither safeguard could be waived.
What a claim would look like
This is not divorce for unmarried couples, and the government says so plainly. The starting point would be that each person keeps what they legally own. There would be no assumption of a 50:50 split.
The court could depart from that only to meet a person’s needs, and needs would be judged more narrowly than on divorce. Somewhere to live and an income would count, as would provision for retirement. Anything the consultation calls discretionary would not.
Where a claim succeeds, the orders would be similar in type to those available on divorce. That includes transferring property and, notably, pension sharing. The court would try to meet needs with capital rather than ongoing payments. Maintenance would be kept for exceptional cases, such as serious health problems or disability, and would be for a fixed period that could not be extended.
Timing matters. The government proposes a two-year limit for bringing a claim after the relationship ends, and that clock would run even if the two of you are still living under the same roof.
When a partner dies
The consultation also proposes that a qualifying cohabitant should inherit automatically when their partner dies without a will, broadly in the same way as a spouse. The minimum period for that has not been fixed. The Law Commission previously suggested five years, or two where the couple had a child together, and the government is reviewing those figures.
It also proposes removing the two-year requirement for an Inheritance Act claim where the couple had children together.
When will this become law?
Nobody can yet say. The government has said legislation will follow when parliamentary time allows, and the details may well change after the consultation. The papers do not say whether years spent living together before any new law comes into force would count towards the three years. Do not assume they will.
Our view is simple. Waiting for Parliament is not a plan.
What you can do now
If you are buying a home together, decide how it should be owned and record it. A declaration of trust setting out your shares costs a fraction of a dispute about them later. If one of you is putting in a larger deposit, that is the moment to deal with it.
A cohabitation agreement can set out what should happen to the home and your other assets if you separate. Under the proposals, a properly made agreement of this kind is also how a couple would opt out of the new scheme, so the same advice and disclosure that make an agreement reliable today are likely to matter even more in future.
Make a will. Check who is named on your pension nomination forms and life policies. These steps protect your partner now, whatever Parliament eventually does.
If your relationship has already ended, the current law applies to you, and the time to take advice is before positions harden.
Goldsmiths Solicitors have a dedicated Family Law team who deal with disputes between cohabiting couples as well as divorce and marital finance. Request a callback or call 0121 690 4000 and ask for the Family Department.
This article reflects the law in England and Wales and the government’s proposals as at October 2026. It is general information, not advice on your own circumstances.