It is nonsense to say that unmarried couples have no legal partnership rights (Report, 3 October). Unmarried couples have practically all the rights that married couples do, except (1) exemption from inheritance tax on transfers between spouses, (2) an automatic right to inherit on an intestacy, and (3) the right, on splitting up, to go through a divorce – which, as the solicitor quoted in your report pointed out, is not always fun. Please do not equate rich cohabitants who marry to avoid inheritance tax (levied on only the richest 6% of estates) with the rest of us, who mostly have our homes (owned or rented) in joint names, who can make wills in each other’s favour (even on an intestacy, a dependent cohabitant can claim a share), and who can name each other as next of kin. Civil partnership is not a way to get rights we would not otherwise have without getting married. As that solicitor emphasised, in the UK it is marriage under another name, and quite different from civil partnerships and civil unions in other countries.
Prof Rosemary Auchmuty
School of law, University of Reading
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