The information provided below is not intended to be legal advice and visitors to this web site should not act upon this information without consulting with legal counsel. If you are in a serious, long-term relationship, and if you share a house or apartment with your partner, the Center encourages you to consider creating a cohabitation agreement. Such agreements may be created years into a relationship, or just as you decide to move in together. A cohabitation agreement is a contractual arrangement between you and partner, in which you define each partner's liability on property, such as a credit card account or a house.
Cohabitation agreements are legally binding contracts.
Once you have signed the agreement, you will be responsible for all of the terms in the contract, even if unforeseen circumstances arise or you decide that you would rather do something differently. While most people involved in long-term relationships do not want to contemplate the possibility that the relationship may end someday, sometimes such relationships do come to an end. And when they do, it is helpful if both partners have protected their rights, clarified their intentions, and avoided future litigation. The Center recommends that couples seeking to obtain some of the legal protections marriage provides should create contracts. No contract can replicate or create all the legal rights, obligations and protections that legal marriage offers.