This is a list of legal consequences of forming a marriage or civil partnership in England and Wales.
- For the purposes of capital gains tax, a married couple/civil partners can claim private residence relief for only one dwelling, even if they live apart.
- Married/Civil partners can possess joint property without needing to agree a contract.
- In case of accident or illness of one spouse, the other is considered as next of kin.
- A spouse of a British citizen is entitled to a residence permit.
- A spouse may not be compelled by a criminal court to disclose private communications with their spouse.
- When a married couple/civil partners separate, the courts have wide powers to divide their property and may set aside prenuptial agreements.
- Wills are revoked on marriage or formation of a civil partnership (unless made in contemplation of marriage/formation of a civil partnership) . Similarly, a divorced former spouse cannot benefit from a will made before divorce/dissolution.
- No inheritance tax is payable on an estate inherited by a surviving spouse/civil partner, if they are UK domiciled.
- The surviving spouse inherits part or all of the estate of a spouse who dies intestate. The exact rules for intestacy are different in the countries of the UK. In England and Wales, if there are children, the survivor inherits the first £125,000 plus personal possessions plus a life interest in half the remainder; if there are no children but the deceased has surviving parents or siblings, the surviving spouse inherits the first £200,000 plus personal possessions plus half the remainder; otherwise the survivor inherits the whole estate.
- The surviving spouse is paid a proportion of their deceased spouse's pension.
- Women who become spouses to male peers and knights usually receive titles which last for the length of a marriage. Men who are married to women who are made dames, as well as civil partners of ennobled spouses, do not receive titles.
| England portal | |
| Wales portal |
| This Wales-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
| This article related to English law is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
Famous quotes containing the words legal, consequences, marriage, civil, partnership, england and/or wales:
“The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgment, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“The consequences of our actions grab us by the scruff of our necks, quite indifferent to our claim that we have “gotten better” in the meantime.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Always the same old story—
Father Time and Mother Earth,
A marriage on the rocks.”
—James Merrill (b. 1926)
“They have been waiting for us in a foetor
Of vegetable sweat since civil war days,
Since the gravel-crunching, interminable departure
Of the expropriated mycologist.”
—Derek Mahon (b. 1941)
“Society is indeed a contract.... It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.”
—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)
“It seemed a long way from 143rd Street. Shaking hands with the Queen of England was a long way from being forced to sit in the colored section of the bus going into downtown Wilmington, North Carolina. Dancing with the Duke of Devonshire was a long way from not being allowed to bowl in Jefferson City, Missouri, because the white customers complained about it.”
—Althea Gibson (b. 1927)
“I just come and talk to the plants, really—very important to talk to them, they respond I find.”
—Charles, Prince Of Wales (b. 1948)