Cohabitation: Living Together and Breaking Up Can Be Just Like a Divorce, Experts Say
Living together as a way to avoid the bonds of marriage may not mean a detour from the courtroom at the end of the relationship.
Cohabitators may need to work out their own asset division at the end of the relationship, just like those who divorce. And that process of division may take place in a courtroom.
Whether or not those couples end up in court hinges on a variety of factors, said Jared Laskin, whose private legal practice in California mainly focuses on legal problems between unmarried couples. What I can say is that it’s extremely likely that a couple that goes into a long-term relationship without discussing their finances will be unhappy when they break up,”he said.
Cohabitating relationships, or couples who live together, are relatively common. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, there are 11 million unmarried people living together.And during the years from 1990 to 2000, that number increased by 72 percent.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, as of 2002, 41 percent of American women between the ages of 15 and 44 have lived with an unmarried partner.
The American Law Institute acknowledged a deficit in the law that serves couples who are unmarried but living together.The institute,founded in 1923,developed a report, “Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution,” which covers a variety of issues faced by nontraditional families. It drafted proposals for legal reform, recommendingthat states adopt legislation that provides cohabitating partners the same kind of legal support in asset distribution as marital law.
“A marriage certificate does not, in itself, provide guidance on how to be provide for dependents or how to fairly divide property,” said Lisa-Nicolle (Nicky) Grist, the executive director of the Alternatives to Marriage Project, which advocates for fairness for unmarried people no matter what their circumstances.
Despite the recommendations, state lawsvary — and cohabitating couples aredeveloping their own personal contracts tot mitigate some of the legal confusion.
In his practice of business and palimony law, Laskin has found that people with oint assets are more likely to need court intervention, and those with modest resources are less likely to end up in court.
The most common situation, Laskin said, is when one partner accumulates the majority of the assets, and the other partner assumes those assets are shared. Without some sort of contract in place before the break-up, Laskin said, the partner without assets is likely to sue. For that reason, Laskin recommends that couples who live together and share their assets enter into cohabitation agreements.This is especially helpful for people who are wealthy and want to protect their net worth, he said.
Laskin said the typical cohabitation agreementkeep assetsseparate.Neither party has an obligation to support the other. And neither party is performing services, such as housework, or home remodeling, with the expectation of later being paid for them. Anybody who is going into a cohabitation situation would benefit from a cohabitation agreement,” Laskin said.
The most common troublesome scenario, Laskin said, iswhen a couple buys a house in one person’s name.Usually, couples do this because one person has better credit, and they can get a better interest rate or tax credit.The person whose name is not on the title may still contribute to the home, but there is no written agreement. Very few people have the foresight to do this,” Laskin said, but everybody should.”
Hiring an attorney to draw up a cohabitation agreement can be expensive, Laskin said, especially if there are a lot of assets. The more complicated the financial portfolio, the more detailed the agreement must be, he said.For most agreements, Laskin charges about $2,500. It’s a small investment, and it’s definitely worth the money for that protection,” Laskin said.
It is possible for couples to develop cohabitation agreements using online forms, Laskin said, but those forms are not a complete assessment of all of the issues. The ones online tend to focus on who is going to do the dishes and how they are going to split the utility bill,” Laskin said. “I don’t recommend it, but an agreement you write yourself is better than nothing.”
For couples who don’t have an agreement and are considering breaking up, one partner is usually the potential target of a lawsuit –usually thepartnerwith greater financial assets, Laskin said. If they are holding the assets, they are holding the cards,”he said. I certainly advise anyone to do what their conscience dictates.”
The partner who is considering bringing the suit has a much more arduous journey.Trying to gain assets not in one’s name is legally difficult.Laskinrecommendedvisiting an attorney to see if that partnerhas anyclaim to the assets.He sometimesadvises clients stay in the home until an agreementis reached, giving the otherpartner an incentive to divide property equitably.
Once you are gone,” Laskin said, you are more easily forgotten.”
Michele Bush Kimball has a Ph.D. in mass communication with a specialization in media law. She has spent almost 15 years in the field of journalism, and she teaches at American University in Washington, D.C. She recently won a national research award for her work.She can be reached at
m.kimball@Wevorce.com
.
