Separation for Unmarried Couples

What the Law Says About Unmarried Separation

Living together does not create a marriage, however long it lasts. There is no legal status of common law marriage in England and Wales, whatever the length of the relationship and whether or not there are children.

So your separation cannot be dealt with as a divorce is. There is no application for maintenance for yourself and no pension sharing. Savings, belongings and debts follow ownership: a claim has to be based on who owns what, not on sharing things out because the relationship has ended. Property disputes between cohabiting partners are decided under the Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996, and the civil court hearing such a claim cannot award maintenance, divide pensions or make lump sum payments.

What does count is who owns the home and in what shares, what the two of you agreed or intended, the separate rules that apply to children, and the protection available if you are frightened of your partner. What can be put in place while you are still together sits on our unmarried couples and cohabitation hub.

The Home: Joint Names and Sole Names

How you own the home together is the first question. GOV.UK guidance on joint property ownership explains that joint tenants have equal rights to the whole property, which passes automatically to the other owner on death, while tenants in common can own different shares that do not pass automatically. In joint names with nothing recorded about the shares, the starting presumption is equal beneficial shares, and it is for whoever says otherwise to prove a different common intention. An express declaration of trust settles the shares instead.

Where the home is in one partner's sole name, the starting assumption is that the legal owner holds the entire beneficial interest, and the other partner must prove a beneficial interest. Our pages on property disputes between unmarried couples and on bringing a TOLATA claim cover that ground.

Under section 14 of the Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996 anyone with an interest in property subject to a trust of land can apply to the court, which may declare the nature or extent of a person's interest or make orders about a sale. Section 15 lists the matters the court weighs, including the welfare of any minor who occupies, or might reasonably be expected to occupy, the land as a home.

If you rent, the tenancy decides your position. Schedule 7 to the Family Law Act 1996 lets the court transfer certain tenancies of a home cohabitants shared from one of them to the other once they cease to live together, weighing housing needs and resources and each party's suitability as a tenant.

Evidence and the Problems That Come Up

Whether you have a share in a home held in one name turns on evidence of what each of you paid and what you both intended, not on what feels fair: bank and mortgage statements, transfers between you, receipts for building work, and messages in which the two of you discussed shares or made promises. A note made at the time is worth more than a recollection years later.

Common problems include:

• a deposit from one family, with nothing recorded about whether it was a gift, a loan or a share
• years of paying the bills or the childcare rather than the mortgage, with no shared understanding about who owned the house
• a promise that the house was half each that neither of you wrote down
• joint borrowing that paid for something you both used, where each of you may be liable for the whole debt

How an Unmarried Separation Usually Works

1. Get advice before you sign anything or agree a figure. Moving out does not by itself end your interest in the home, although what each of you does afterwards can affect the shares a court decides, and if you are frightened of your partner your safety comes first.
2. Collect the documents: the title, any agreement or declaration of trust, the mortgage or tenancy, and statements showing the deposit and payments.
3. Exchange information, so you are both negotiating over the same property, savings, debts and, where children are involved, income.
4. Negotiate, through solicitors or with family mediation.
5. Record it properly: a separation agreement, a declaration of trust, a transfer of the property, or a consent order where a claim has been issued.
6. Apply to court if agreement proves impossible, under section 14 about the property or under the Children Act about the children. A court fee may be payable: the current fees are on the GOV.UK court and tribunal fees page, and help with fees may be available depending on your income, benefits and savings.
7. Implement it: transfer or sale, mortgage release, closing joint facilities.

Children When You Were Never Married

Marriage makes no difference to a child's right to be supported, but it does affect parental responsibility. The birth mother has it automatically. A father who was not married to or in a civil partnership with the mother when the child was born does not: under section 4 of the Children Act 1989 he acquires it by becoming registered as the child's father, by a parental responsibility agreement with the mother, or by a court order on his application. That registration route came into force on 1 December 2003, so where a birth was registered earlier the certificate alone does not give the father parental responsibility unless the birth has since been re-registered. See how parental responsibility is acquired.

Parental responsibility is not a right to spend time with your child, and it is not permission to decide alone. GOV.UK guidance for separated parents is clear that a parent who has parental responsibility but does not live with the child must still be included in important decisions, that routine decisions do not always need the other parent's consent, and that a major decision, moving abroad with the children for example, needs everyone with parental responsibility to agree in writing. Where you cannot agree, a specific issue order or a prohibited steps order puts it to a judge.

Taking a child under sixteen out of the United Kingdom without the consent the Child Abduction Act 1984 requires, or the court's permission, is an offence. The Act requires the mother's consent, and the father's only where he has parental responsibility, so a father without it would need a court order to stop a trip: see taking a child abroad.

If you cannot agree where the children live and how they spend time with each of you, either parent can apply for a child arrangements order. You will usually need to show you have attended a mediation information and assessment meeting first, and you may be exempt in some circumstances, for example where there is evidence of domestic abuse. Maintenance is either agreed between you or worked out by the Child Maintenance Service.

Schedule 1 of the Children Act 1989 also lets a parent apply for financial provision for a child's benefit, which matters where there is capital in one partner's hands and a child who needs housing. Our page on unmarried parents and children goes further.

When Legal Advice Matters Most

Take advice early if the home is in your partner's sole name and you are the one thinking of leaving, if a sale or remortgage is being arranged without you, if a deposit or inheritance of yours went into the property, or if a business or pension is involved.

If you are frightened of your partner, that comes first. In immediate danger call 999; the National Domestic Abuse Helpline is 0808 2000 247, free and open at any hour. The family court can make a non-molestation order, and it can decide who lives in the home through an occupation order. Those powers under Part IV of the Family Law Act 1996 reach cohabiting and former cohabiting partners, not only spouses.

The law here is under review. The Ministry of Justice consulted between 5 June and 14 August 2026 in A fairer end to relationships on a statutory framework of rights for eligible cohabitants who separate, and on inheritance where a cohabiting partner dies. It has closed and nothing has changed yet, so your separation is dealt with under the law as it stands.

How RakLAW Solicitors Can Help

We advise either partner in a separation: the one whose name is on the deeds, or the one whose name is not. We start by telling you what your position is.

RakLAW Solicitors was founded by solicitor Rakesh Prajapati and is regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Our office is at 42 Shad Thames, London SE1 2YD, in Southwark and a short walk from Tower Bridge. We are privately funded, and how we charge for family work is on our family law fees page. The first conversation is a free 15 minute consultation: call 0203 345 2000.