Cohabitation Agreement

The Ministry of Justice's own consultation document defines the term directly: 'Cohabitation agreements are agreements which may set out details of ownership of property, outline each partner's financial responsibilities during the relationship and specify what should happen if their relationship breaks down. They can be made at any stage and updated as circumstances change.' Crucially, they are a matter of private contract, not an automatic legal status: 'they are not automatically legally binding and their enforceability depends on how they are drafted.'

Agreements like this exist precisely because the law gives cohabiting couples very little by default. The same consultation confirms: 'There is also no legal status of "common law marriage" in England and Wales, regardless of the length of time a couple has lived together or whether they have children.' Despite that, the government's own research found that 'almost half of people (47%) in England and Wales believe such a status exists' — a misunderstanding which 'means that many cohabitants are unaware that, when their relationship ends, they have access to only very limited financial provision.' The government has separately acknowledged that couples are sometimes put off making an agreement in the first place: it notes cohabitation agreements 'are often perceived as costly, unromantic, unnecessary or because couples ... assume separation will never occur' — and has launched a consultation on giving cohabitants some default statutory protection instead of relying solely on private agreements.