Civil Partnerships

At TWM Solicitors our civil partnership solicitors can help if you are looking to enter into a civil partnership or want to dissolve your civil partnership.

Our civil partnership solicitors can advise you on any issues that may arise with regard to a civil partnership including:

• Pre-partnership agreements;
• Sperm Donor Agreements;
• Adoption;
• Dissolution of a civil partnership;
• Arrangements for your children following the breakdown of a civil partnership;
• Separating your finances following the breakdown of a civil partnership.

Civil partnerships are available to any couples – same sex couples and opposite sex -who wish to enter into them, as long as neither of the individuals is already in a civil partnership with or married to another person.

A civil partnership provides a couple with almost identical rights and obligations to those provided for by marriage. The formalities for entering into a Civil Partnership are similar to those for entering into a marriage but there are some differences in the ceremonies: civil partnership ceremonies do not include a religious reading or music and they cannot take place in a church or religious venue.

Civil partnerships may be attractive to couples who do not like the idea of marriage but want to provide each other with some of the financial protection that could be obtained from marriage, particularly in relation to Inheritance Tax.

If civil partners separate, their civil partnership can be dissolved, following a similar process to using a divorce to end the marriage.  Civil partners will have financial claims upon each other on a dissolution, in the same way that spouses have financial claims upon each other on divorce.

If you are considering entering into a civil partnership, you may want to consider entering into a Pre-Partnership Agreement (like a Pre-Nuptial Agreement) to make provision for dealing with your finances in the unfortunate event of your relationship breaking down.

If you are looking to start a family using a sperm donor, it is really important to understand the benefit of being in a civil partnership or marriage prior to conceiving a child using a known donor. You can read more about this here.

It is possible for existing civil partnerships between same sex couples to be converted into legal marriages, if the partnership was entered into before marriage was available to same sex couples.

If you would like to speak with a member of our civil partnership team call us on 0330 555 0440 or email a member of our family and matrimonial team here: family@twmsolicitors.com.