NLJ this week: It’s time for cohabitation law reform

Marriage is declining in popularity but the law has not kept up with this societal change. Craig, senior consultant at Penningtons Manches Cooper and a former chair of Resolution, has played a leading role in the development of family law in the past few decades.

Here, Craig says the time for an ‘opt-out’ cohabitation law regime is now. That is, couples who live together should be given legal protection unless they choose not to be. Craig writes: ‘Those who want to can exercise an autonomous choice to “opt out” and have a pre-cohabitation agreement or a cohabitation agreement.’ The result, she argues, would be a fairer situation for the less economically powerful in the relationship, for example, the person who gives up work to care for children, who need the protection of legal rights more.

Unfortunately, the myth of common law marriage continues to trip people up at their most vulnerable points.