I think it's over-simplifying to say the commitments should be opt-in. To be able to opt in you need to know that you've not already got whatever legal protection it was you were thinking of (apparently quite a few people believe there is such a thing as common-law marriage), that you can opt into such things, you need to find out how you go about it, you need to get round to it, and you need both partners to agree.
For a well-informed middle class person in an evenly balanced relationship none of this should be remotely difficult, of course. But of the LTC's sample: “10% said that their partner would not agree, 10% felt that they could not afford legal advice, and 9% said that they were afraid it would cause problems in their relationship”. That's nearly a third of the respondents who'd apparently like to opt in but apparently feel that they cannot.
Declaration isn't such a bad way to distinguish couples from friends living together; indeed it would amount to forcing an explicit statement of opt in or opt out in each case. There are downsides to lying either way, and if you lie you both have to lie, making it unlikely that you'd do so unless the downsides were about equal for both members of the couple.
Abolishing inheritance tax, or allowing housemates to inherit without tax, would stop people claiming to be in relationships when they weren't in order to avoid it. Something else would have to go up but probably not by very much. (I don't feel very strongly either way about inheritance tax personally, so this isn't “...and that's why we should modify/abolish this odious tax” or anything, it's just an observation; though I'll admit to a bias in favor of simplicity.)
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Date: 2007-07-27 08:10 pm (UTC)I think it's over-simplifying to say the commitments should be opt-in. To be able to opt in you need to know that you've not already got whatever legal protection it was you were thinking of (apparently quite a few people believe there is such a thing as common-law marriage), that you can opt into such things, you need to find out how you go about it, you need to get round to it, and you need both partners to agree.
For a well-informed middle class person in an evenly balanced relationship none of this should be remotely difficult, of course. But of the LTC's sample: “10% said that their partner would not agree, 10% felt that they could not afford legal advice, and 9% said that they were afraid it would cause problems in their relationship”. That's nearly a third of the respondents who'd apparently like to opt in but apparently feel that they cannot.
Declaration isn't such a bad way to distinguish couples from friends living together; indeed it would amount to forcing an explicit statement of opt in or opt out in each case. There are downsides to lying either way, and if you lie you both have to lie, making it unlikely that you'd do so unless the downsides were about equal for both members of the couple.
Abolishing inheritance tax, or allowing housemates to inherit without tax, would stop people claiming to be in relationships when they weren't in order to avoid it. Something else would have to go up but probably not by very much. (I don't feel very strongly either way about inheritance tax personally, so this isn't “...and that's why we should modify/abolish this odious tax” or anything, it's just an observation; though I'll admit to a bias in favor of simplicity.)