Cohabitation. Urgent deadline: Could you be owed backdated bereaved parent support?
If you were living with a partner but not married when they died, you could be one of 12,000 parents still owed thousands in backdated bereavement support payments.
However, the deadline to claim is 8 February 2024 so speed really is of the essence.
Alison Penny, director of the Child Bereavement Network, says backdated payments could be considerable.
She says: “Some of the amounts people have received under these back payments really are life changing. There’s a real symbolic importance to these payments as well. It’s also about the recognition that these children, their grief matters just as much as anyone else.”
How has the law changed to help parents whose cohabiting partner dies?
The Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that the exclusion of cohabitees from being able to claim Widowed Parents Allowance (WPA) was unlawful and against human rights.
This paved the way for WPA to be replaced last year with the Bereavement Support Payment scheme.
This means that cohabiting parents are now treated the same as parents who are married or in a civil partnership if one of them dies and can claim bereavement support as a result.
Who qualifies for the backdated support?
To be eligible for the backdated bereavement benefits, you must have had children living with you on 20 August 2018.
This is the date that the Supreme Court ruled that unmarried mother of four, Siobhan McLaughlin, had been unfairly and unlawfully treated when she was refused WPA (at the time £117 a week) after her partner of 23 years died.
A recent Freedom of Information request made by the BBC revealed that the Department for Work and Pensions believes that 12,000 out of 17,000 bereaved cohabiting parents still haven’t put in a backdated request.
This means there is an estimated £175 million still waiting to be claimed.
Click here to see if you are eligible (there are also some rules about National Insurance contributions) and how to claim.
Get in touch
Although cohabiting couples still have inferior legal protection compared to married couples and those in a civil partnership, there have been some small steps forward.
In 2017, the Supreme Court disapplied the requirement for pension nomination forms to be completed for cohabitees to benefit. It branded this ‘unlawful discrimination’ as anyone married doesn’t have to fill them in.
And the Labour party has promised to reform cohabitation law – something that we at Wards Solicitors are very much in favour of – if it wins the general election later this year.
If you are in a cohabiting relationship and need help with any aspect of the law as it applies to you, please contact our specialist Cohabitation Team.
Wards Solicitors is recommended in the independent Legal 500 guide for 2024 for its outstanding professional service standards and high levels of expertise amongst its lawyers.