Are New Zealand's current relationship laws fit for purpose in a modern world? 1News Digital Reporter Emma Hildesley took a look at the legal loopholes, and asks whether it's worth putting a ring on it after all.
I was sitting in a bar in Auckland, colourful drag queens shimmying across the stage, with the idea of marriage swirling through my mind.
Wearing a backless green dress and holding a laminated cut-out of my friend's husband‑to‑be, I watched her bask in the glow of her "last night of freedom".
"You'll be next," my partner’s aunt whispered to me with a conspiratorial wink.
I smiled politely, thinking the same thing I've thought for the past 20 years: No. I. Won't.
In our late 20s, my partner and I already own a house together. We have a lovely cat and a bitey puppy who carries both our last names. We might have children one day but we have no plans to "put a ring on it," and why would we? I’d always assumed our de facto status meant we were "basically married anyway" — complete with the air quotes I've used describing this to friends, in‑laws and my partner's 97‑year‑old grandmother.
And we're hardly unusual. While the 2023 Census shows 74.2% of couples still live in marriages or civil‑unions, de facto partnerships and other modern arrangements like "living apart together" have steadily grown.
But while societal change has been rife, the laws regarding relationships have stayed the same. And, studying them, it doesn’t take long to realise they leave de facto couples somewhat unprotected. In fact, they're no longer relevant to many married couples too.
'Out of step' with modern society
University of Otago law professor Nicola Peart has spent more than four decades studying relationship property. She says it's "most definitely" time for New Zealand to rethink its laws.
Peart says the Property Relationships Act (PRA) was ahead of its time when enacted in 1976, recognising non‑financial contributions to a relationship (such as raising kids, housework and supporting another’s career) and promoting equal sharing of relationship property regardless of which person within a couple officially paid the mortgage.
In many cases, that Act protected women, enabling them to leave a marriage in midlife with something to show for years of cooking, cleaning and parenting while their husbands built lucrative careers with guaranteed future earnings.
But 50 years on, society has changed dramatically and these laws which once seemed progressively equitable can now have feel archaic and unfair.
"In 2019, the Law Commission concluded the PRA was not fit for purpose because it no longer meets the expectations and values of 21st‑century New Zealanders," says Peart. "In their view, it should be repealed and replaced."
A central issue is the family home, which is "almost invariably classified as relationship property, even if one partner brought it into the relationship fully paid for".
Once a relationship (married or de facto) crosses the three‑year threshold, the home is normally shared equally.
"That no longer reflects what people think is appropriate,” says Peart.
"People get together later in life with assets; many are in second or third relationships. Yet the only way to avoid the home becoming relationship property is to contract out or put it in a trust — and hope the trust isn’t later ‘busted’ by the courts".
The once progressive PRA is now "out of step with where society is", a topic she says will be raised at a 50th-anniversary conference to be held at Parliament in July.
The nuclear family is no longer the norm
Fifty years ago a separating couple who owned a home were highly likely to have entered the relationship in their twenties, without much in the way of property, assets or even savings. Their wealth, or their investment in their home, will have been built together, alongside a family, and the Act declared it should be split evenly.
Peart says that idealised nuclear family is "long gone," but New Zealanders still broadly accept the idea of sharing what couples create together.
"Most couples probably do accept that what they've created together, they should share. The problem comes when assets are brought in [to the relationship] and end up being shared equally."
She emphasises the ongoing relevance of recognising non‑financial contributions such as childcare, domestic work, or supporting a partner's career.
"The notion that your partner who is managing the domestic front is a contributor to the wealth you accumulate — I don’t think that’s an unacceptable principle for modern families."
However, she says a 2018 Borrin Foundation survey of 1000 people showed public discomfort with equal sharing when one partner brings significant pre‑relationship property into the home or pays a deposit alone.
Diverse families, diverse expectations
Peart says views vary significantly across ethnic and cultural communities — something the PRA barely takes into account.
She points to Māori perspectives, where tikanga has "dramatically increasing" recognition in legal proceedings and decision-making. Importantly, she says, the PRA does not apply to Māori freehold land.
"If a home is on Māori freehold land, the Māori Land Court will never vest ownership in a partner who is not part of the whānau the land belongs to. Land must remain within the bloodline."
This often means a partner who contributed financially to a house on Māori land cannot receive a share of that property. "You then have to find alternative ways to compensate them and hope there are other assets available."
New Zealand's large and growing Asian communities also bring different cultural approaches, she says, yet the PRA recognises almost none of these differences. "Courts try to factor in cultural perspectives, but that’s extremely difficult because the Act is a code. You can’t easily move outside of it."
Was that a gift or a loan?
I present Nicola Peart with a common but potentially messy scenario: a de facto couple buys a house, and both contribute what they can, but one partner also uses a family gift.
She says many people do this — make informal arrangements with parents or partners, with no record at all. Then if they split, suddenly the parents say it was a loan, not a gift.
"If you split up, under the PRA, the family home is relationship property and you each get an equal share. Unless you've contracted out, he’s not entitled to get the family gift back.
She says people are often shocked by this, and she stresses the importance of clarifying whether money is a gift or a loan, but says this is "very often not done".
This is an area where married people tend to be (though are not always) better protected than those in de facto relationships, as messy situations such as family “gifts” are more likely to be clarified in a pre-nuptial agreement.
Essentially, if you’re a well-off boomer and you’d like to present your adult child and their beloved with a substantial contribution to their future home (something happening increasingly as young couples rely on the “bank of Mum and Dad” to help them become home-owners), you need to take into account that the relationship might not last.
Let’s say you’re giving your daughter and her partner $50,000. Ask yourself, will you be happy if her de facto partner walks away with $25,000 of that offering if the relationship ends? If not, you should call the gift a loan and clarify that legally.
When, exactly, did the relationship begin?
Everyone knows when a marriage begins – there is a literal date and time of day. With de facto relationships, it’s murkier.
People are often in what could legally be defined as a de facto relationship without knowing they are,” says Peart.
Legally, it’s generally when a couple begins living together – although there are exceptions. But even the point at which people begin living together isn’t always clear cut. Perhaps they were originally flatmates. Maybe one partner “stayed” with the other for a period. Or one partner might have lived partially with their partner in one city, and commuted to another for work.
"These issues only come to the fore when people separate, at which point they all have different views about what happened years ago,” says Peart.
Determining the official start date can have enormous financial consequences because pre‑relationship property normally remains separate, except for the family home.
Which means, if you’re in a de facto relationship, it’s worth sitting down with your partner and putting in writing the date when you both agree the relationship began.
Where there's a will there's a... well, that depends
Nicola says the differences between marriage and de facto status become very pronounced around wills and death, with those in de facto relationships generally being less protected.
"A will is automatically revoked when the testator marries. But it’s not revoked if they stay in a de facto relationship."
Many couples don't realise this. "Marriage is just one step in a continuing relationship, but people don’t think about their wills being revoked."
Divorce also cancels gifts to a former spouse — but there is no equivalent for de facto partners. "Provisions for a former de facto partner remain until the will is changed," she says.
In other areas, those in marriages or civil unions are better protected. Peart notes Section 182 of the Family Proceedings Act, which allows courts to make orders in relation to property tied up in trusts — but only for married or civil‑union couples.
"If they were de facto, that remedy isn’t available," she explains.
'Ignorance is scary'
Peart says a striking feature of modern relationships is how little people understand the consequences of their choices, an idea emulated in recent research from Australia.
"There's a lot of misperception about the rights and consequences of different relationships. I find that ignorance is really quite scary, because people are being caught unawares, and that's a problem."
Armed with this new knowledge, I told Peart I'd aim for Plan A — a cringe-worthy happily ever after — with the hope our bitey puppy grows into a less-bitey dog, we have a few kids, and stay together forever.
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