Is there common-law marriage in South Africa?

The short answer

Plenty of South Africans believe that once you have lived together long enough, the law quietly upgrades you to “married.” It does not. There is no common-law marriage here, and vat en sit, shacking up, call it what you like, gives you no legal status no matter how many years go by.

That sounds harsh. It plays out worse. The people who find this out the hard way usually find out the day a relationship ends or a partner dies, when it is already too late to fix.

Where the myth comes from

The idea gets passed around at braais and picked up from American shows, where a handful of states do recognise something like common-law marriage. People assume it must work the same way here. It does not. Go looking and you will not find a single South African law, or one court judgment, that turns living together into a marriage after a set number of years. It is simply not a thing.

What the law does recognise

There are three ways to actually be married in South Africa, and cohabitation is not one of them:

• A civil marriage, under the Marriage Act 25 of 1961.
• A civil union (same-sex or opposite-sex), under the Civil Union Act 17 of 2006.
• A customary marriage, under the Recognition of Customary Marriages Act 120 of 1998, where the requirements of customary law are met.

If your relationship is not one of those, the law sees you as cohabitants. Partners who live together. Automatically, nothing more.

What you do NOT get

Because there is no common-law marriage, living together gives you no automatic right to:

• a share of property that is registered only in your partner’s name
• inherit from your partner if they die without a will
• maintenance (“alimony”) if the two of you split up
• your partner’s pension, unless you are named on the form
• decisions about their medical care in an emergency, unless you have set that up in advance

That is a lot of exposure to carry on the strength of “we’ll sort it out one day.”

The two narrow exceptions

There are two ways a cohabitant can sometimes claw something back. Lean on them at your peril. Neither is automatic, and both mean a fight:

• A universal partnership. If you can show a court the two of you effectively ran your lives as one shared venture, pooling money and effort, it may treat your assets as shared. The catch is that you have to prove it, and the burden is all yours. We unpack exactly how in the guide on a house in your partner’s name.
• Inheritance after Bwanya.Since the Constitutional Court’s 2021 ruling in Bwanya v Master, a surviving permanent life partner can claim from a deceased partner’s estate, but again only by proving a permanent life partnership with a mutual duty of support. More on that in the inheritance guide.

What to do instead

Three moves cover almost everyone:

1. Sign a cohabitation agreement that sets out who owns what and what happens if you split.
2. Each write a proper will so your partner inherits what you actually want them to.
3. Put their name on the forms (pension, retirement annuity, life policy) and sort out medical and financial authority while you are both well.

Questions people ask us

We have been together 15 years. Surely that counts for something?

Not on its own. Years do not convert into rights here. Without an agreement, a will or a court win, a 15-year partner can be in the same boat as a 15-month one.

Is “vat en sit” recognised by law?

No. “Vat en sit” is just the Afrikaans way of saying you live together. It carries no special legal status.

Does having children together change it?

Your children have their own rights to care and support whether or not you are married, and an unmarried father has his own rights to his child too. None of that gives the two of you rights against each other, though. You still need the agreement and the wills.