Buying Together Before Marriage: Where Your Half Goes

If you are buying a house with your girlfriend and are not married, and you are wondering what happens to her share if she dies, the answer is the one almost nobody expects: you may not inherit it at all. An unmarried partner has no automatic right to a deceased partner's share of a home, however long you have lived together and whatever you have both put in. Whether the share comes to you depends on two things only — how the two of you are named on the title, and whether there is a will.

This catches unmarried couples buying a house precisely because everything about the purchase feels shared. One mortgage, one front door, two names on the paperwork, a deposit that came from both of you. It reads like a partnership. But cohabiting partner inheritance rights in the UK simply do not follow from living together, and the law that decides who inherits when there is no will has no category for a boyfriend, a girlfriend or a partner. It goes looking for a spouse first, and after that it goes looking for blood.

So the honest short answer to "do I inherit if we are not married" is: not unless you have deliberately arranged it. Left to chance, your partner's share can travel straight past you to their children, or their parents, or their brothers and sisters — people who may then co-own the home you live in.

The short answer: an unmarried partner is not an heir

When someone dies without a will, their estate is shared out under a fixed legal order called the intestacy rules. Those rules start with a surviving husband, wife or civil partner, and then move to children, and then to other blood relatives. A partner you were not married to does not appear anywhere in that order. It does not matter that you had been together for twenty years, that you shared every bill, or that you were about to marry. On intestacy, the law treats you as a stranger to the estate.

People assume that being on the mortgage together must count for something here. It does not, at least not in the way they hope. Being jointly liable for a loan is a duty you carry, not a right you gain. It obliges you to keep paying; it does not entitle you to your partner's share of the house. Those are two separate questions, and the death answers them differently.

The one route a surviving cohabitant has is a claim under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975, which lets a partner who lived with the deceased as a couple for at least two years, or who was being financially maintained by them, ask a court for reasonable provision from the estate. It is a real remedy, but it is a court case brought while grieving, with costs and no guaranteed outcome, and it is the opposite of the quiet certainty most couples assume they already have.

Joint tenants or tenants in common: the fork that decides everything

Before you trace where a share goes, you have to know whether there is a separate share at all. Two people can own a home in one of two legal ways, and the difference is the single most important fact about what happens on a death.

As joint tenants, you both own the whole of the property together, and neither of you has a distinct share to leave to anyone. When one joint tenant dies, the survivor takes the lot automatically, by survivorship, outside the will and outside the intestacy rules entirely. For an unmarried couple who want the house to pass to each other, this is usually the arrangement that does it without any further paperwork.

As tenants in common, each of you owns a defined share — often half each, but it can be any split you agreed, which matters when one of you put in a much larger deposit. That share is yours to leave as you choose. And that is where the danger sits: if you die a tenant in common with no will, your share does not go to the survivor. It falls into your estate and follows the intestacy rules to your blood relatives.

Most people have never been told which of the two they are, and cannot remember being asked. It is decided at the point of purchase and recorded on the title. You can settle it in an afternoon — our guide on how to check whether you are tenants in common on the title register shows you exactly where to look for the marker that tells you. If you are not sure, treat that as the first thing to do, because everything below depends on the answer.

Where your share goes when there is no will

Suppose the worst combination: you hold the house as tenants in common, and the partner who died left no will. Here is the actual chain the law follows to decide who inherits that share. It is worth reading slowly, because each step is a real person who could end up owning part of your home.

• Children first. If the deceased had children — from this relationship or any earlier one — the share passes to them in equal parts. A child under 18 inherits through a trust until they come of age. The surviving partner receives nothing at this step.
• Then parents. If there are no children, the share goes to the deceased's mother and father, equally if both are living.
• Then brothers and sisters. If the parents have died, it passes to the deceased's siblings, and if a sibling has already died, to that sibling's own children — the deceased's nieces and nephews.
• Then wider blood relatives. Failing all of those, it works outwards to half-siblings, grandparents, and aunts and uncles, in a set order.

At no point in that list does the surviving partner appear. This is the mechanics behind the search "girlfriend died who inherits her share of the house": the honest answer is her children if she had any, and if not, her parents, and after them her brothers and sisters. You, the person she bought it with and lived in it with, are not on the list unless she named you in a will. We set the same journey out from the inheriting side in our guide to where a tenant in common's half share goes on death.

The survivor who ends up owning their home with their partner's family

Follow that to its ordinary conclusion and you reach the situation this page exists to warn about. You are alive, still living in the house, still paying the mortgage — and you now own it jointly with your late partner's parents, or their adult children, or their brother. They did not choose this and neither did you, but the law has made you co-owners of the roof over your head.

Co-owners have rights. A relative who inherits a share becomes a tenant in common alongside you, and if relations sour, or if they simply need the money, they can apply to the court under the Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996 for an order that the property be sold so their share can be released. Even where everyone is decent about it, you may find you cannot remortgage or sell without their agreement, and that you are sharing your home, on paper, with people you would not have chosen as business partners.

The way out of this is almost always money arriving quickly in the survivor's hands — enough to buy the family's inherited share from them at a fair value, so the survivor becomes the sole owner and the relatives are paid what they are due. That is one of the specific jobs life cover is bought to do for unmarried buyers, and we return to it at the end.

There is no such thing as a common-law wife

The belief that does the most damage here is the "common-law marriage". A very large number of couples think that living together for long enough, or having children together, quietly converts into something with legal weight. It does not. There is no common-law marriage anywhere in the UK, and there has not been for a very long time. The phrase has no legal meaning at all.

That means none of the protections a spouse gets apply to you by default. No automatic inheritance. No exemption from inheritance tax on what does pass between you. No survivor's pension as of right under many schemes. No standing in the intestacy rules. The couple who assume "we're basically married" are the couple most exposed, because they take no steps precisely because they think they do not need to.

If you do want the legal protection of marriage or a civil partnership, forming one changes the picture completely, and it is worth understanding exactly what shifts — our guide on whether a civil partnership gives the same protection as marriage when one partner dies runs through it. But that is a decision about your relationship, not a workaround, and plenty of couples want to stay unmarried and simply arrange their affairs properly instead.

What a will fixes, and the gap it leaves

A will is the first fix, and it is not optional if you are unmarried and want your share to reach your partner. A valid will overrides the intestacy rules for anything that passes through your estate. Leave your tenants-in-common share to your partner in a will, and it goes to them rather than to your parents. This is the single most effective thing an unmarried couple can do, and it is cheap.

But a will has a hard limit, and it is important to see it clearly. A will decides who inherits. It does nothing about whether they can afford to keep the home. If a mortgage is still running, the survivor has to carry it on one income, and may have to satisfy the lender all over again to put the loan into their sole name — a fresh lending decision that can be refused on affordability even though the person is already fully liable for the debt. And the estate's debts and any tax are paid before anything passes down, so a house can arrive encumbered rather than clear.

There is also a timing trap worth flagging if you were buying your first home together. Money set aside in a Lifetime ISA that a saver dies before using to buy does not simply transfer to the surviving partner as house-deposit money; it forms part of the estate and follows the will or the intestacy rules like everything else, which can pull a chunk of your deposit away from the person you were buying with.

Scotland and Northern Ireland

The general principle holds across the UK — an unmarried partner is not automatically an heir anywhere — but the detail differs, and it is not safe to assume the England and Wales rules apply.

In Scotland, a surviving cohabitant does have a limited statutory route the rest of the UK lacks. Under section 29 of the Family Law (Scotland) Act 2006, a cohabitant can apply to the court for a share of a deceased partner's estate where the partner died without a will — but the application must be made within a strict time limit of six months from the death, and the court decides what, if anything, to award. It is a discretionary safety net, not an entitlement, and the deadline is unforgiving. Scottish property is also often held with a survivorship destination written into the title, which passes a share to the survivor in a way broadly similar to a joint tenancy.

In Northern Ireland, the intestacy rules are set out in separate legislation and, like England and Wales, give a cohabiting partner no automatic entitlement. The order in which blood relatives inherit differs in its detail, so anyone dealing with an estate there should check the Northern Ireland rules specifically rather than relying on guidance written for England.

Wherever you live, the practical fix is the same combination: know how you hold the title, make a will, and make sure there is money to clear the mortgage so the survivor is not forced to sell. You can see how this sits alongside the other moments that change who depends on you in our guide to life events that change who depends on you. If you have realised there is nothing in place to clear the loan for the one left behind, you can get life insurance quotes and have an FCA-authorised broker price cover against your actual mortgage and share.

Frequently asked questions

Does my partner inherit my share if we are not married?

Not automatically. Cohabiting partners have no entitlement under the intestacy rules in England and Wales, however long you have lived together. Without a will, a share held as tenants in common passes to your children, or if you have none, to your parents and then your siblings. The way to make sure it reaches your partner is to hold the property as joint tenants, or to leave the share to them in a valid will, or both.

Is there such a thing as a common-law wife?

No. The term has no legal meaning in the UK. Living together, sharing bills and having children give a surviving partner no automatic right to inherit, though someone who was being maintained by the deceased may claim under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975. That claim means court proceedings brought while grieving, with costs and no guaranteed result, which is why it is a last resort rather than a plan.

Would a will be enough on its own?

A will fixes who inherits your share, but not whether your partner can afford to stay. If a mortgage remains, they must qualify for it alone, and debts and any tax come out of the estate first. That is the gap life cover is normally bought to fill: money arriving quickly to clear the loan, or to buy out a relative who has inherited a share, so the survivor can keep the home rather than being forced to sell it.