Cohabiting couples are the fastest-growing family type in the UK. There are three and a half million couples living together without being married or in a civil partnership.
Sharing a home, and perhaps a family and finances, is a huge commitment, you might assume that years of living like this would give you similar protection to a married couple. But in England and Wales, it doesn’t.
However, big changes could be on the way, the government is planning to give cohabiting couples more rights when it comes to property and finances and has been consulting on what that might look like. There are already frameworks in place for those living in Scotland and Ireland. In Northern Ireland there are fewer protections.
Felicity Hannah is joined by Hannah Saxe, a specialist family solicitor at Brabners law firm who also sits on Resolution’s National Cohabitation Committee and Laura Suter, director of personal finance at AJ Bell.
Presenter: Felicity Hannah Producer: Sarah Rogers Editor: Jess Quayle Senior News Editor: Sara Wadeson
(This episode was first broadcast on Wednesday the 30th of September, 2026)