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:
“If he who breaks the law is not punished, he who obeys it is cheated. This, and this alone, is why lawbreakers ought to be punished: to authenticate as good, and to encourage as useful, law-abiding behavior. The aim of criminal law cannot be correction or deterrence; it can only be the maintenance of the legal order.”
—Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)
“War is thus divine in itself, since it is a law of the world. War is divine through its consequences of a supernatural nature which are as much general as particular.... War is divine in the mysterious glory that surrounds it and in the no less inexplicable attraction that draws us to it.... War is divine by the manner in which it breaks out.”
—Joseph De Maistre (1753–1821)
“Always the same old story—
Father Time and Mother Earth,
A marriage on the rocks.”
—James Merrill (b. 1926)
“Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer;
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike;
Alike reserved to blame, or to commend,
A timorous foe, and a suspicious friend;
Dreading e’en fools, by flatterers besieged,
And so obliging, that he ne’er obliged;
Like Cato, give his little senate laws,
And sit attentive to his own applause:”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
“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 had not a New England but an Oriental character, reminding us of trim Persian gardens, of Haroun Al-raschid, and the artificial lakes of the East.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“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)