Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly
DISTRIBUTION OF ASSETS UPON RELATIONSHIP BREAKDOWN
Stack v. Dowden
In Stack
v. Dowden
,1
the House of Lords continued the quest to devise a solution for determining the property rights of unmarried cohabitants upon separation. Since the court’s discretion under the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 to redistribute assets upon divorce does not extend to cases involving unmarried couples, the role of the courts in these cases is to determine the beneficial interests of the parties in accordance with the common law. But the law on the distribution of assets upon the separation of cohabitants
LLOYD’S MARITIME AND COMMERCIAL LAW QUARTERLY
456