You have decided to settle down with your other half, do not take this big step without thinking beforehand. Because the legal status of your couple will have serious consequences on each other’s assets.
In France, there are two types of legal regimes: the first so-called “community” marriage groups together marriage in community reduced to acquests, the one used legally in France by default, and the universal community. The second, called “separatists”, combine marriage in separation of property, PACS and cohabitation. Another regime, the community with participation in acquests, very little used in France, is mixed and functions as a separation of property by dissolving like a community.
Each regime distinguishes between own assets, which remain the personal property of each of the two and which must not be shared in the event of divorce or death, and common assets, which belong to each of the two for half, even if only one helped to constitute them.
With separatist regimes, no community exists, all property remains clean. The universal community, a minority in France and adopted by some very old couples, is the exact opposite: all the heritage is shared. Finally, the legal regime distinguishes between own goods, acquired before marriage or received by gift or inheritance, and common goods, earned (income from work and common and own heritage) and acquired during the marriage.
“Many couples remain in concubinage or enter into a PACS and, when they marry, they increasingly choose separation as to property”, according to Arlette Darmon, president of the Monassier group.
The concern with these rules? “Many couples live in separation of goods while they act as if they were in community or else marry in community and manage their money as if it were clean”, laments Nathalie Couzigou-Suhas, notary in Paris. Worse still: it is often during a divorce or separation that the ex-partners discover the patrimonial consequences of their choice. And often it is the women who suffer from the formation of a couple. “In 1998, the wealth inequalities between men and women in a couple were 9%, they rose to 16% in 2015”, confides Marion Leturcq, researcher at the National Institute of Demographic Studies.
A very paradoxical observation, because this quasi-doubling has taken place when more and more women are working and the wage differentials are narrowing slightly. However, it is a fact, men in couples accumulate more wealth to the detriment of their half. One of the explanations for this phenomenon is to be found on the legal side. Because if, in 1998, 80% of married couples pooled their assets, in 2015 they are only 70%. The reason ? The regimes of separation of property, PACS and cohabitation are gaining ground in the younger generations. “Many couples remain in cohabitation or enter into a PACS and, when they marry, they increasingly choose separation as to property”, notes Arlette Darmon, president of the Monassier group. However, if they have the advantage of never mixing the patrimonies and the incomes of each one, they are also the least protective for the spouse who stops working, or goes part-time to raise the children, it is that is to say often the woman.
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