If you ask a class of schoolchildren to draw a picture of “my family”, the results are likely to be very different to the drawings of 25 years ago.
Alongside the traditional nuclear family of married father and mother and their children would probably be same-sex couples, single parents, step-families, and families living across different households.
Societally, these different combinations are unremarkable, but in legal terms there can be differences in how relationships are considered. These may not seem significant to the family members, but in certain circumstances, they can become very important indeed.
The first of these circumstances is relationship breakdown and the ensuing financial arrangements.
The rights and obligations of cohabiting partners are very different to those of married couples or same-sex couples in a civil partnership. Therefore unmarried parents should not assume that, if it came to court, their financial positions would be similar to divorcing couples they know.
Another area of difference is when one partner dies without a Will. Again, it is marital status that is key here, not the gender of either partner. In cases where a Will has not been prepared (intestacy), surviving cohabitees should not presume their rights will be the same as those of a spouse, however long-standing their relationship.
Whatever the composition of your family, there are relatively easy ways to prevent such shocks, from writing Wills to making cohabitation or prenuptial agreements. This will help to identify whether there are any legal or financial pitfalls that could apply to your own family arrangements, and head off any subsequent legal disputes or surprises.
As statistics on modern relationships show, not every love story has a happy ending. A few simple legal documents could protect your financial future, and prevent a fairytale romance from turning into a long-running courtroom drama.
Scotland’s modern families
- In 2015 more than 50% of births in Scotland were outside marriage or civil partnership.
- In Scotland, there were almost 27,000 marriages in 2015. Each year, there are approximately 10,000 divorces.
- In the last census in Scotland, almost a fifth of family households were one-parent families.