Cohabiting redress scheme

Heineken85

I can across this scheme online and I'm both intrigued and confused. I'm not planning on availing of this scheme but am wondering is it utilized often and if not why not? Maybe my understanding is incorrect but if you are unmarried and living together for 5 years ( 2 if you have a child together), if your relationship ends through a break up and are financially dependent on your partner you are entitled to maintainents , property and pension adjustments . If this is the case, could you hypothetically have a child with someone, live in their house, not work and get your partner to support you and your child, pay your bills etc, breakup and go through a redress scheme after 2 years and receive property, a house, land ( if the partner had any). Seems a very easy way of getting set up for life or am I missing something here?

tjhook

I would imagine it's possible. But I don't think there's any prescriptive outcome in the legislation. I would imagine in reality the outcome would be very different for a young couple who cohabited for two years without kids, versus a couple who lived together for 20 years, had children, bought property etc.

Dial Hard

It's theoretically possible but in practice, highly unlikely. When such redress is sought the courts look at what each party brought to the table in the first place, contributions made (both financial and in-kind) during the period of cohabitation and will make orders proportionate to that.

It would be very, very unusual for someone who moved into a partner's house and contributed virtually nothing throughout to come out of a break-up with the house, a maintenance order, etc.