Partly. Legal cohabitants keep separate ownership, so each still sells what is theirs, but the shared family home gains a protection: it cannot be sold without both partners’ consent, even by a sole owner (Notaire.be, 2026). Succession rights are weaker than for married couples.
Registering a legal cohabitation does not merge the partners’ property, so in most respects selling works exactly as it does for any owner. Belgian legal cohabitation operates on separation of assets: each partner keeps what belongs to them, and what neither can prove is theirs is presumed owned jointly in indivision (Notaire.be, 2026). A partner who solely owns an investment flat or a second property can therefore sell it alone, without their cohabitant’s signature, just as before registration.
The rule changes for one specific asset, and it is the important one: the family home. During the legal cohabitation, the home the couple lives in and its furniture cannot be sold, mortgaged or given away by one partner without the other’s consent, even where that home belongs legally to only one of them (Notaire.be, 2026). This is the single most significant effect of legal cohabitation on selling, and it catches people out precisely because it overrides sole ownership. The logic is protective: the law shields the roof over a registered couple’s shared life.
Where legal cohabitation clearly differs from marriage is succession, not day-to-day sales. A surviving legal cohabitant inherits, by default, only the usufruct of the family home and its furniture, not full ownership and not a broader share of the estate as a married spouse would (Notaire.be, 2026). That has knock-on effects when the survivor later wants to sell, because holding a usufruct rather than full ownership limits what they can do without the bare owners, typically the deceased partner’s children.
The honest summary: legal cohabitation leaves ordinary sales untouched, adds a strong consent protection over the family home, and leaves the survivor in a weaker inheritance position than marriage. Couples who want fuller protection often formalise it through a cohabitation contract before a notary or by marrying.
At a glance
- Separation of assets: each partner sells what is provably theirs, alone.
- Jointly bought property is presumed held in indivision, needing both to sell (Notaire.be, 2026).
- The family home cannot be sold without both partners’ consent, even by a sole owner.
- That family-home protection lasts as long as the legal cohabitation.
- On death, the survivor inherits only the usufruct of the family home by default.
- Succession rights are weaker than for a married spouse.
- A notarial cohabitation contract can adjust several of these effects.