Stack v Dowden

As one lawyer put it, most succinctly, I thought - "Get your partner to pay for the gas or the electricity." What you should do is pay the mortgage, because that is what will count when your cohabitation decouples. After 20 years together, and four children, and a court case costing hundreds of thousands, their Lordships came to the conclusion that most lawyers thought they would come to - they divided up the Stack-Dowden castle not in reference to their family life, but in reference to direct financial contribution to the property itself. Cohabitation is not marriage, it is not marriage-lite - it is not anything. Legally, in England, it does not exist.

Cohabitation

Family Law

Stack v Dowden