Splitting After Living Together

    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, recommending that 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 laws vary -- and cohabitating couples are  developing their own personal contracts tot mitigate some of the legal confusion.