Civil Partnerships - What they Mean for You

The first civil partnerships were formed on 21 December 2005, after the Civil Partnerships Act 2004 came into effect on 5 December 2005. Same-sex marriages contracted abroad, however, have been recognised as valid civil partnerships from 5 December 2005. Whilst the legal formalities may differ from those of marriage, the practicalities make them almost identical, including the granting of the full range of paternity and child care rights enjoyed by married couples.

A civil partnership can be terminated only by death, legal dissolution or annulment and dissolution is allowed, as in marriage, only on the grounds of irretrievable breakdown. One difference between civil partnerships and marriage is that adultery is not a ground for irretrievable breakdown in the former, but is in the latter. On the breakdown of a civil partnership, the normal claims for financial relief – such as division of assets and maintenance payments – apply as in a marriage and with the first breakups of civil partnerships already taking place, it is clear that the courts are taking the same approach to dissolutions of civil partnerships as they do in the breakdowns of marriages.

Civil partners have the equivalent rights of a spouse on the death of their civil partner, so the same sort of thinking needs to be applied towards making a will and Inheritance Tax planning as should be done by married couples. A civil partnership, like a marriage, invalidates an earlier will.

More recently, the Government has announced that same-sex couples are to be allowed to hold civil partnership ceremonies in churches and other places of worship in England and Wales.