Over the course of the last few decades, one change in particular has been evident in British households.
A reduction in the number of marriages has coincided with a rise in the amount of couples choosing to cohabit instead.
On the face of it, official data would appear to support the position held by several commentators that something of an irreversible transition has taken place – that marriage has definitively fallen out of favour in the UK.
The most recent figures published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed that there were 246,897 marriages in 2022 – a drop of almost 21 per cent in the course of the last 30 years (https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/marriagecohabitationandcivilpartnerships/bulletins/marriagesinenglandandwalesprovisional/2021and2022).
Conversely, the ONS has demonstrated that the number of cohabitees in 2022 stood at 6,834,418 – up almost 73 per cent in just 20 years (https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/bulletins/populationestimatesbymaritalstatusandlivingarrangements/2022).
Those patterns have been interpreted as signs that marriage will be even less frequent in the future, especially among younger couples (https://marriagefoundation.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/MF-briefing-note-Collapse-of-marriage-among-Gen-Z.pdf).
However, it is also possible to argue that this may be one instance of perception not entirely matching up to reality.
If we look a little more closely at the available data, we can see that cohabitation prior to marriage has actually increased over time. In fact, 90 per cent of the couples who wed in England and Wales during 2022 had lived together beforehand.
Whilst a proportion of couples might aspire to marriage, there are important legal distinctions between those who do so directly and those who cohabit beforehand, not least with regard to respective financial rights should their relationships break up.
That is, I would suggest, a point driven home by the results of a recent survey by a leading online estate agency, Zoopla.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it found that home ownership was now more of a priority for couples than marriage (https://www.zoopla.co.uk/press/releases/no-rings-attached-homeownership-outranks-marriage-as-a-top-priority-for-uk/).
Zoopla found that the greater costs now involved in taking first steps on the property ladder were causing people to at least postpone their wedding plans in order to buy a house.
One glance at figures produced by the Land Registry suggests that might be a logical position.
In March this year, the average house price in the UK stood at £271,415 – up more than six per cent on the equivalent month in 2024 (https://landregistry.data.gov.uk/app/ukhpi/).
The situation is even more challenging for individuals living in London, where the average house price now exceeds half a million pounds (£552,073).
It is a considerable outlay, one compounded by a rise in the cost of living in recent years.
I would suggest that whether couples are fortunate to buy their own homes or renting while saving to do so, moving in together is as significant a decision – personally and financially – in its own way as marriage, regardless of the status in law as things stand.
Therefore, it makes perfectly good sense for those involved to put protection in place.
No-one can predict whether a relationship will work or not. What we do know is that 41 per cent of marriages have ended in divorce within 25 years of vows being exchanged (https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/divorce/bulletins/divorcesinenglandandwales/2022).
Just as an increasing number of spouses-to-be recognise the value in pre-nuptial agreements for providing a structure by which they can disentangle their assets without litigation, so a cohabitation agreement can help minimise the complication for those who live together before marriage.
They can set out who brings what into the relationship and the respective contributions for as long as a couple is together.
The consequences of not doing so can be enormous. Hall Brown has recently acted on behalf of a woman whose cohabitation broke down after more than 20 years, leaving her with no ability to make a financial claim on her former partner in the same way that she would have been entitled to do had she been married.
As the law stands, couples usually have to resort to property law – the Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996 (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1996/47/contents) – and demonstrate a “beneficial interest” in the property which they will be moving out of.
Such action is complicated and can be costly too.
The disparity between the financial rights of spouses and cohabitees is something which successive governments have acknowledged as needing to be addressed.
Before being elected last July, Keir Starmer’s Labour Party pledged in its manifesto to “strengthen the rights and protections available to women in co-habiting couples.”(https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Labour-Party-manifesto-2024.pdf).
Whereas the Conservatives had promised to examine the case for cohabitation reform only after the laws governing divorce were updated, Labour has promised that the two projects can proceed in tandem.
In February, Justice Minister, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, outlined plans for a consultation on the matter later this year (https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/46636/documents/238516/default/).
Legislative change, however, can take some time and any delay carries the risk of yet more unmarried couples buying homes in the interim without putting measures in place should they no longer want to stay together.
My strong recommendation would be to think in ink – formalise the terms on which you move in, so that potential division does not lead to dispute.
That means having a cohabitation agreement and a declaration of trust (recording who owns what share of a joint property and how proceeds from any future sale will be divided) recognising the contribution of the person putting more money into a purchase.
