Living Together in Scotland
- Weir Law
- Jul 3, 2019
- 2 min read
Living Together in Scotland
If you’re currently living with your partner but you’re not married or in a civil partnership, you might want to get your wills arranged sooner than later.
“Co-habitants” is the officious-sounding term given to people in this situation.
There’s no such thing as common law marriage in Scotland. It doesn’t matter if you’ve lived with your partner for a long time, Scottish law doesn’t give you the same rights as married people or those in a registered civil partnership.
If you’re a co-habitant and you die without making a Will, your partner won’t be entitled to anything – even the right to keep living in the property, if you are the sole owner of it.
The only thing your partner could do in that circumstance would be to go to court within six months of your death to ask for a “financial provision” from your estate. In practice this means raising a court action against your partner’s family, with all the distress and legal costs that come with it.
If you’re married or in a civil partnership you also need to make a Will. If you die without making one, the law decides who-gets-what. You might think it’ll all go to plan, but what happens if a child from a previous relationship stakes a claim on your estate?
The law is always seen as an old fashioned and outdated system created by people who are out-of-touch with reality, but there’s a clear and present danger if you assume everything will sort itself in the long run.
Don’t leave anything to chance while you have the ability to control it so easily.
Weir Law is a specialist Scottish law firm, providing you with essential personal legal services in a clear and straightforward way.
We help people throughout Scotland make important decisions regarding their future. From our office in Glasgow, we cover the whole of Scotland. And as a modern law firm, we provide you with the advice you need at a time and in a manner that suits you best. So, whether you are at home in Greenock or at work in St Andrews, you can access our legal know-how entirely at your convenience.
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