603 - Will-writing Basics, and the Threat to Co-habiting Couples

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
Welcome to Modern Mindset, the show that picks the brains of the world's leading minds to help you unlock yours. Decoding the beliefs and strategies of global experts to give you an updated mindset to make the most of modern life.

**Rory McGowan** (0:21)
This is Modern Mindset, the show that picks the brains of the world's leading minds to help you unlock yours. My name is Rory McGowan, and today I'm talking to a leading UK lawyer who specializes in estate and will management to talk about the rights couples have to each other's assets, how being married can change that, and how you can make sure that what you own goes to the right people after you pass away.
I'm joined by Helen Claydon, the Chief Legal Officer at Simpler Law. Helen, it's lovely to have you on.

**Helen Claydon** (0:51)
Thanks Rory, it's great to be with you today.

**Rory McGowan** (0:53)
Thank you very much. Now, strangely, we've talked a lot about funerals this year on the show, and of course, having a proper will is a very important part of passing away and making sure that what you own goes to the right people. So, can you give a brief kind of background on what the law is around, you know, wills and if you don't have one, where do your assets go? Kind of give us a background on what the current state of the law looks like.

**Helen Claydon** (1:22)
Yeah, so the law as it stands, there's provisions called the intestacy rules and these are the rules that dictate who inherits if you were to pass away, intestate, so that's without a will in place. Now, these rules were based in legislation that was first introduced in 1925 So we're talking over a hundred years ago. So as you can imagine, they don't necessarily reflect the way that people live their lives today.
And a recent consultation that's looking at cohabitation, it's interesting to note that these intestacy rules make absolutely no provision at all for people who are cohabiting. So if you're in a cohabiting relationship, even if you've been living together for 10, 20 years, if you have children together, if one of those were to pass away, the other one has no automatic right to inherit anything at all from their estate, which can leave really difficult financial consequences.

**Rory McGowan** (2:19)
Yeah, wow. I mean, it doesn't surprise me almost that that's not covered off. But 1925 is, yeah, it might be time to look at kind of updating those laws then.
So is this something that the people, the general public are aware of? Because I'm myself not aware of this, but you know, this is seems pretty important, especially if you have elderly relatives in your life. Yeah, how well do we know about this?

**Helen Claydon** (2:46)
Yeah, so we've been doing some research recently based on the fact that the government are looking into it. What we found is that actually there's a massive gap between public perception and the legal reality of people's rights, especially for cohabitees, if one of them dies without a will in place. So our research showed that actually 28% of people, and largely this was cohabiting couples that we spoke to, they believe that they will automatically inherit if something happened to their partner, which is completely wrong.
There was another 27% that actually admitted that they had no idea at all what would happen if their partner died. So I think overall, this shows a real lack of clarity and a lack of understanding about the law as it stands now.

**Rory McGowan** (3:32)
That's of course bad news for cohabiting couples. But I would imagine, especially if you're at your kind of older age here, Helen, the people who are really considering updating their will and making sure that it's proper and things are going to the right people.
I would imagine a lot of those people would be married though.

**Helen Claydon** (3:54)
Well, we've found actually that more and more people are choosing to cohabit instead of get married. We know from national statistics that weddings have actually dropped 25% in the last 30 years.
And it's predicted that in another five years' time, so by 2031, that one in four households will actually be cohabiting couples instead of a traditional married unit. So that's increased dramatically over the last 30 years. It's almost doubled actually. So yes, we still see a lot of older clients who are in a traditional marriage, and that's still really important to make sure you get your will and your wishes documented legally. But I think the trend is moving towards more cohabiting relationships, definitely.

**Rory McGowan** (4:40)