Key Post Property rights of cohabitants who are not married

mf1

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Extracted from another thread

For co-habitants see this extract from Citizens Information:

Property rights and the breakdown of a cohabiting relationship


If a cohabiting couple in Ireland splits up, the family home (and other family assets) will belong to the person who holds the legal title to the home/assets. This means that in the case of the family home, the person who originally bought the house and whose name is on the title deeds will usually own the house. Read about joint ownership of property and cohabiting couples here.

However, if your relationship breaks down and your name is not on the title deeds to the house, you may still be able to show that you have some ownership rights in relation to the house. These rights are based on the fact that you made a contribution to the purchase price of the house with the intention of gaining a share in the ownership of the house.

Contributions to the purchase price of the house can be direct or indirect. Direct contributions include contributions to the initial down payment for the house or contributions to the mortgage installments. Indirect contributions may include paying some of the other day-to-day household expenses or unpaid work in the legal owner of the house's business. It has been held by the courts that working in the home looking after children and money spent or work done on home improvements are not contributions that give you any right of ownership in relation to the house.

Rules

Usually, where you can show that you have made a contribution to the purchase price of the house, you will be entitled to a share in the house in proportion to your contribution. For example, if you have shown that you paid off half of a mortgage that represented 90% of the purchase price, you would be entitled to 45% of the ownership of the property.

As well as showing that you made a financial contribution to the purchase price of the house, you must also show that your contribution was made with the intention of gaining a share in the ownership of the house and that you were not making a gift of the money to the legal owner of the house.

Under the redress scheme for cohabiting couples a property adjustment order is one of the remedies available to the courts.
mf
 
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Say, Johnny owns a house mortgage free and Mary moves in and they live together for 5 years and then she moves out. She would have no claim on the house.

Say Paddy has a house worth €200k and a mortgage of €170k when Anne moves in. He makes the full mortgage repayments. She has some oral agreement with him to pay him rent equal to half the mortgage payments. After 10 years, they split. She could claim she has ownership of the house. So he should do up an actual tenancy agreement with her and specify that it gives her no share of the ownership of the house. Not very romantic, but would save a lot of fighting later.
 
Say Paddy has a house worth €200k and a mortgage of €170k when Anne moves in. He makes the full mortgage repayments. She has some oral agreement with him to pay him rent equal to half the mortgage payments. After 10 years, they split. She could claim she has ownership of the house. So he should do up an actual tenancy agreement with her and specify that it gives her no share of the ownership of the house. Not very romantic, but would save a lot of fighting later.

Even stronger would (and less romantic!) is to draw up an opt-out agreement with their solicitor. Google gave me this:

[broken link removed]

Opting-Out
To avoid the Act, cohabitants must act positively and opt out, by way of a cohabitant’s agreement.
This is a legal agreement which allows couples regulate their finances, themselves. Items such
as property, debts, bank accounts, custody and access of children amongst others may be
addressed in such agreements. If couples do not opt-out, they very likely could find themselves
the subject of court proceedings under the Act.

On a final note, whilst it is imperative for couples to draw up an agreement in order to avoid the
Act, it is open to the courts, in “exceptional circumstances” to set aside such an agreement ,
where its enforceability would cause serious injustice.
 
Thanks Dachshund

Would you mind extracting the bits to clarify it?

That is the definition of a cohabitant. But does a cohabitant automatically get property rights?
 
Dachshund is right Brendan

A cohabitant for at least 5 years or
A cohabitant for 2 years if you have had a child with your partner
 
Act - Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Duties of Cohabitants Act 2010

S172 definition of cohabitant - as @alaskaonline neatly summarised

S173 Maintenance, Property Adjustment Order, Pension Adjustment Order can be applied for by qualified applicant above. List of factors similar to separation / divorce

As was pointed out there might be Cohabitation Agreement - valid if each has independent legal advice.

Jurisdiction - Circuit Court concurrent with High Court.

These are very brief summaries in these posts.
 
That is not clear at all.

As it is a Key Post, could someone quote out the relevant bits

Section x - "A cohabitant is

Section Y - " a cohabitant gets half the house"

Make it easy for us laymen to follow without having to read lots of sections.
 
Well the only part that is clear is what a Cohabitant is.

The Orders for Maintenance, Property Adjustment Orders, Pension Adjustment Orders are at the discretion of the Court - I can list the contents of the section for you to peruse and you will see it ..depends on the facts of the case .. and there hasn't been too much by way of litigation yet!

[Feck if it was easy for the layman where would that leave any of us.. actually these land mines may come as a shock to cohabitants who thought they would avoid any responsibility what so ever .. so its a gotcha!]
 
Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Duties of Cohabitants Act 2010
Sections of the Act
PART 15 Cohabitants

171. Definitions.

172. Cohabitant and qualified cohabitant.


173. Application for redress in respect of economically dependent qualified cohabitant.


174. Property adjustment orders.


175. Compensatory maintenance orders.


176. Attachment of earnings order.


177. Compliance with attachment of earnings order.


178. Application of sums received by clerk.


179. Statement as to earnings.


180. Notification of changes of employment and earnings.


181. Power to determine whether particular payments are earnings.


182. Persons in service of State, local authority, etc.


183. Discharge, variations and lapse of attachment of earnings order.


184. Cesser of attachment of earnings order.


185. Other remedies.


186. Enforcement.


187. Pension adjustment orders.


188. Procedural provisions respecting pension adjustment orders.


189. Rules respecting payments under schemes.


190. Payments further to orders under section 187.


191. Costs.


192. Value of benefit calculation.


193. Mediation and other alternatives to proceedings.


194. Application for provision from estate of deceased cohabitant.


195. Limitation period.


196. Jurisdiction and venue.


197. Particulars of property.


198. Conduct of proceedings.


199. Privacy.


200. Costs.


201. Rules of court.


202. Validity of certain agreements between cohabitants.


203. Amendment of section 39 of Residential Tenancies Act 2004.


204. Amendment of section 47 of Civil Liability Act 1961.


205. Amendment of Powers of Attorney Act 1996.


206. Transitional provision — redress orders.


207. Transitional provision — agreements.

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/2010/en/act/pub/0024/print.html
 
I agree with WizardDr, if it was that easy there would be no need for lawyers! I'll give the standard legal answer, "It depends... ".

The Citizens Information website gives the simplest and most comprehensive answer to most questions involving cohabitants. MF1 has taken an excerpt from the site and the page is worth reading in its entirety.

http://www.citizensinformation.ie/e...ps/redress_scheme_for_cohabiting_couples.html

Brendan, I appreciate your desire to give straight forward answers in a key post but because of the wide and complicated nature of family relationships and their breakdown, the best advice is probably to consult a lawyer.
 
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