PhD student: Mrs M. Huijzer

Promotors: Mrs Dr C.R. Mol, Mrs F.M. de Kievit

Duration: 1/1/2024 - 31/12/2027

Abstract:

Children grow up in different types of families. One is a family of parents with an informal relationship (informal family): the parents live together on the basis of an affective relationship without marriage or registered partnership. In recent years, the number of informal relationships has increased to 1.1 million couples. Almost half of these couples have one or more children, and each year about 36,000 children from such relationships experience their parents' divorce. Informal families are not subject to a legal relationship regime but to general property law. As a result, the protective effect and compensation of matrimonial property law, alimony and pension law are lacking. Moreover, the application of general property law leads to legal uncertainty. This is not in the interest of these families. Because of the lack of protection from the consequences of parental separation, the risk of child poverty and conflict is greater. For example, the parent who has taken care of the children and household for many years, and therefore has accrued little income and pension, does not receive spousal support upon divorce. This can have major financial consequences for the custodial parent and therefore for the child. In addition, when an informal relationship is terminated, discussions about asset shifts often arise, resulting in uncertainty and possibly years of litigation. The inheritance position is also worse than in families of parents with a formal relationship. Informal cohabitants are not legal heirs of each other which, in the absence of a will, can dramatically alter the family's living conditions. Finally, informal families are more likely to have conflicts over parentage, custody and access, for example, because the mother's partner is not automatically the child's legal parent. This leads to the following research question: How can the legal position of (partners and children in) informal families in family and inheritance law be improved? The question of whether and how informal families should be regulated has long been debated in case law, politics and literature. The purpose of this research is to create more clarity about the current position of informal families in order to then examine how this position can be improved.