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Senior women on a park bench in Berlin

Photo: BARBARA SAX/ AFP

Federal Justice Minister Marco Buschmann (FDP) wants to legally protect people who take long-term responsibility for each other without getting married from next year. As part of a so-called community of responsibility, single people should be able to support each other better in everyday life, as Buschmann told the newspapers of the Funke media group. The key points for the reform have already been completed and the law could come into force next year.

»We have more and more single parents, we have more and more single older people. I believe there is a need for a community of responsibility,” said the FDP politician. Specifically, the new family law model is aimed at communities of two to six people who, for example, live together and want to help each other in an emergency.

“With the notarized community of responsibility, you can create a legally secure basis,” said Buschmann. That makes a lot of things easier – for example, when it comes to the right to information from doctors or other representation issues. As a concrete example, Buschmann cited two single older women who live together in a shared apartment but are neither a couple nor want to get married.

No “marriage light”

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Those who enter into a community of responsibility give a social relationship a structure and a positive name, explained Buschmann. "I think that's attractive - especially for people who actually prefer not to deal with sensitive questions such as representation in the event of illness or need for care."

However, the community of responsibility is not a “marriage light,” explained the minister. It will have no impact on the parent-child relationship, there will be no tax relief, nor will there be any consequences under inheritance law or maintenance obligations. However, anyone who wanted could regulate the equalization of assets after the end of a community of responsibility.

According to the information, the present key points provide for different contractual building blocks for the community of responsibility, which can be put together to form individual models. In any case, the community of responsibility must be notarized.

kig/AFP