As per Civil Partnership Act 2004 came into effect in the United Kingdom on December 5, 2005, and it allowed same-sex couples to obtain legal recognition of their relationships through the formation of a civil partnership.
The Act granted civil partners many of the same rights and responsibilities as married couples, including the ability to inherit a partner’s property, the right to make medical decisions on behalf of a partner, and the ability to obtain parental responsibility for a partner’s children. The Act also provided for the dissolution of civil partnerships in cases where the relationship had broken down.
In 2013, the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act was passed in the UK, which allowed same-sex couples to marry. This Act did not automatically convert existing civil partnerships into marriages, but it did allow couples in a civil partnership to marry if they chose to do so. In 2019, the Civil Partnership Act 2004 was amended to allow opposite-sex couples to form civil partnerships as well.