When you move in together, there are a number of things to consider if you are neither married nor in a civil partnership. You will find that you don’t have the same rights as a married couple so you need to think about the implications of this and the rights you have in the event that the relationship breaks down and you need to deal with the financial and legal ramifications.
Although you may be living as partners, in legal terms, you will not actually have any rights to the property unless proper legally binding documents are drawn up. You may want to sell or rent out the property longer-term or if there may be other expenses such as renovation costs or liabilities and you will need to work out who is responsible for paying these costs. The following are some of the ways that you can arrange legal documentation to protect your rights.
Set Up A Cohabitation Agreement
If you arrange to set up a cohabitation agreement, you can detail what arrangements are in place for the property in terms of who pays what, who pays the bills and how the contents of the property will be divided if the relationship breaks down.
Set Up A Declaration of Trust
A declaration of trust is less formal than a cohabitation agreement and simply states how different members of a party share the property.
Set up a Declaration of No Interest in Property
There may be times when you want to declare that you have no interest in a property. This could be for the purposes of stamp duty, income tax implications or where you are planning to rent out the property.
Make a Will
You might also want to think about making a will to specify what will happen to the property in the event of the death of one of the property owners.
There are many things to consider and agree upon when you are arranging these matters. You will need to find a good solicitor who will be able to advise you as to the key considerations. Think carefully about every aspect and the range of possible scenarios. The following article provides some useful pointers.
Make sure that the solicitor you use is able to help you with the documents that you need to arrange. You might be uncertain as to which documents are applicable to your specific circumstances, but a good solicitor will guide you through the process.
If you want to know how a solicitor can help, many businesses now have a wealth of information on their websites or on their social media pages. You can leave a question on the website and although you will not be able to get free legal advice, you can get a good idea as to the steps you need to take.
Websites such as https://www.parachutelaw.co.uk/declaration-of-no-interest-in-property Parachute Law have a space where you can leave a question and someone will get back to you and will be able to provide further information on the process. This also gives you a good idea as to how helpful and efficient a legal business is likely to be, depending upon how long they take to reply and how clearly they communicate the options open to you.
Take some time to consult with your legal advisers and make sure that you have covered all the points relevant to your situation. Time spent at this stage making sure everything is covered could mean that you don’t have further expenses and challenging situations further down the line.