Blog Post

This is not the first time I have be-moaned the ill-fated belief that someone is a common law husband or wife If they live together. There is no such thing in law as a common law spouse, you are either married or you are not.


Last week I went along to a seminar put on by the team that ran the Hudson v Hathway case if you’d like to read it. Emily Roskilly, now of Roskilly and Co lead the seminar, together with the Counsel involved in the case.


If that had been a married couple we would not have been talking about ‘detrimental reliance’ or the need for it, we would have been looking at what was available to the parties in the matrimonial pot, and what they each needed from that pot to be able to provide a home for themselves and any children of the family. When un-married parties separate, they have to look to civil proceedings (Trust of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act – TOLATA for short), and then if there are children, there is a separate route of looking to Schedule 1 of the Children Act 1989.


It is not the same as being married, but then not everyone wants to be married!


As with everything, it ought to be up to the individual couple to discuss and decide what suits them best, but best to do so with the understanding that there is no such thing as the common law spouse.