A report (by an official advisory body) made recommendations designed to bring inheritance law into line with the needs and expectations of modern families, and to simplify the law to help the bereaved deal with the property of a deceased family member. Proposed reforms included: ensuring that where a couple were married or in a civil partnership, assets passed on intestacy to the surviving spouse in all cases where there were no children or other descendants; simplifying the sharing of assets on intestacy where the deceased was survived by a spouse and children or other descendants; and giving certain unmarried partners who had lived together for 5 years the right to inherit on each other's death under the intestacy rules (or 2 years where the couple had had a child together).
Source: Intestacy and Family Provision Claims on Death, LC331, HC 1674, Law Commission, TSO
Links: Report | Summary | Law Commission press release | Nuffield Foundation press release | Resolution press release | Guardian report | Telegraph report
Date: 2011-Dec
The Supreme Court ruled that, where unmarried couples had separated, it was entitled to substitute a 'fairer' division of possessions than the terms of an original legal agreement between the partners.
Source: Jones v Kernott, UKSC 53 (2011), United Kingdom Supreme Court
Links: Judgement | Supreme Court press release | Law Society press release | Resolution press release | Family Law Week report | Guardian report
Date: 2011-Nov
The coalition government announced that it had no intention of reforming the law on cohabitation, despite the recommendations of an official advisory body.
Source: Written Ministerial Statement 6 September 2011, columns 15-16WS, House of Commons Hansard, TSO
Links: Hansard | Law Society press release
Date: 2011-Sep
An article examined trends in cohabitation and marriage over the period 1979?2007. It looked at the experience of different types of partnership by specified ages, the frequency of premarital cohabitation, the average time spent in different types of partnership, the timing of life course transitions, and the outcome of cohabitation and marriage at the fifth and tenth anniversaries.
Source: Eva Beaujouan and Maire Ni Bhrolchain, 'Cohabitation and marriage in Britain since the 1970s', Population Trends 145, Autumn 2011, Office for National Statistics
Links: Article | Telegraph report
Date: 2011-Sep
A think-tank report said that there was 'little or no evidence' that having married parents, as opposed to cohabiting parents, improved children's cognitive or social development.
Source: Claire Crawford, Alissa Goodman, Ellen Greaves, and Robert Joyce, Cohabitation, Marriage, Relationship Stability and Child Outcomes: An Update, Commentary C120, Institute for Fiscal Studies
Links: Report | IFS press release | CSJ press release | Nuffield Foundation press release | Guardian report
Date: 2011-Jul
A report examined cohabitation trends over the previous 50 years. Since the early 1980s cohabitation had been the most common form of first live-in relationship, although the proportion was levelling out at around the 85 per cent mark. However, marriage remained the most common family form of choice overall.
Source: John Hayward and Guy Brandon, Cohabitation: An Alternative to Marriage?, Jubilee Centre
Links: Report
Date: 2011-Jun
An article examined the impact of the Supreme Court decision in Radmacher v Granatino regarding pre-nuptial and other classes of nuptial agreement, together with recent proposals of the Law Commission for reform of the law relating to marital property agreements generally. It explored in particular the question of what, if any, core obligations of marriage could not – or should not – be excludable by agreement.
Source: Joanna Miles, 'Marriage and divorce in the Supreme Court and the Law Commission: for love or money?', The Modern Law Review, Volume 74 Issue 3
Links: Abstract
Date: 2011-May
An article examined the socio-demographic characteristics of births by registration type and parents' marital status, and explored these differences for health outcomes. The distinction between infants with 'resident' and 'non-resident' fathers was more meaningful for health outcomes than that between births inside and outside marriage.
Source: Julie Messer, 'An analysis of the socio-demographic characteristics of sole registered births and infant deaths', Health Statistics Quarterly 50, Summer 2011, Office for National Statistics
Links: Article
Date: 2011-May
A report by a committee of MPs criticized the lack of progress made by successive governments towards addressing the issues raised by forced marriages.
Source: Forced Marriage, Eighth Report (Session 2010-12), HC 880, House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, TSO
Links: Report | BBC report | Guardian report
Date: 2011-May
A think-tank report said that levels of births outside marriage were at their highest point for at least 200 years – contrary to claims that there was nothing new about contemporary levels of family breakdown.
Source: Rebecca Probert and Samantha Callan, History and Family: Setting the Records Straight – A rebuttal to the British Academy pamphlet 'Happy Families?', Centre for Social Justice
Links: Report | CSJ press release | British Academy pamphlet | NFM press release | Telegraph report
Date: 2011-Apr
The European Commission proposed new rules designed to bring legal clarity to the property rights for married international couples and for registered partnerships with an international dimension. The two proposed regulations would help to identify which law applied to a couple's property rights, and the responsible court. The regulations also provided for rules for recognizing and enforcing court judgments in relation to a couple's property in all European Union member states through a single procedure.
Source: Bringing Legal Clarity to Property Rights for International Couples, European Commission
Links: Report | Proposed regulation (1) | Proposed regulation (2) | European Commission press release | ILGA-Europe press release
Date: 2011-Mar
A briefing paper examined recent legal and policy developments in relation to pre-nuptial agreements.
Source: Catherine Fairbairn, Pre-Nuptial Agreements: Recent Developments, Standard Note SN/HA/3752, House of Commons Library
Links: Briefing paper
Date: 2011-Mar
An article examined the relationship between men's age at marriage and subsequent reductions in offending behaviour.
Source: Delphine Theobald and David Farrington, 'Why do the crime-reducing effects of marriage vary with age?', British Journal of Criminology, Volume 51 Number 1
Links: Abstract
Date: 2011-Jan
An official advisory body began consultation on a range of potential options for reforming the law of pre-nuptial, post-nuptial, and separation agreements – contracts made by couples before or during their marriage or civil partnership that were intended to govern their financial arrangements if the relationship ended.
Source: Marital Property Agreements: A consultation paper, Consultation Paper 198, Law Commission
Links: Consultation document | Summary | NFM press release | Law Gazette report | Professional Pensions report
Date: 2011-Jan