Glossary · UK
What is Cohabitation Rights Reform?
A proposed change to give unmarried couples who live together some legal protections on separation or death, similar to those married couples and civil partners already have — not yet enacted into law.
Full Definition
Cohabiting (unmarried) couples in England and Wales currently have very limited automatic legal rights compared with married couples or civil partners: there is no such thing in law as a 'common law spouse', and on separation a cohabiting partner generally has no automatic right to share in their partner's income, pension or property (beyond specific, often complex property law claims over jointly-owned or contributed-to assets), while on death, a surviving cohabitant has no automatic entitlement under the intestacy rules if there is no valid will. The Law Commission has recommended reform to give cohabiting couples meeting certain criteria (such as a minimum period living together, or having a child together) a more straightforward legal safety net, and the government has said it will consider such reform, but as of 2026 no legislation implementing cohabitation rights reform had been enacted, meaning unmarried couples remain reliant on existing property, trust and family law, and are strongly advised to consider a cohabitation agreement and up-to-date wills to protect each other in the absence of statutory reform.