Cohabitation Agreements. It is often advisable for parties who are not married, but live together as a couple, domestic partners or who live together and own assets together, to enter into cohabitation agreements. This applies to both gay couples and straight couples. This is because Minnesota does not recognize common law marriage or palimony.
Cohabitation Agreements define the rights of each person in the property jointly purchased. For example, when parties go into a business venture, they often make partnership agreements for similar reasons. Likewise, it is quite reasonable to enter into a Cohabitation Agreement defining what happens if the property is lost, destroyed or damaged, or it the parties split up. Cohabitation Agreements also define who owns items of personal and real property and what the other party’s contribution will be to those things.
These cohabitation agreements can provide for many of the things the marriage relationship implies, in a contract for parties who do not wish to be married (or cannot be married under law as it currently stands). These agreements help you deal with family, friends, employers and insurers of your significant other when they can no longer fill that role. The agreements and powers of attorney and titling of assets can work to protect you, your assets and your significant other while doing nothing, leaves you both at risk. These agreements can be very much like ante-nuptial agreements and partnership agreements.
Such an agreement is helpful in nurturing a relationship because it helps people define their expectations and roles together so that they both share an understanding of their future instead of both just guessing what the other person is thinking. To think in advance about what will happen if there is a breakup may help a person in deciding what to do and keep them from being caught off guard in a break up. Marriage is an implied contract and when people are living in close proximity, and are not married, the marriage contract may seem to be what the standard of conduct should be, but it is not. In cases where there should be defined rights or property interests, where people are taking other actions in reliance upon the other person or upon jointly owned assets, if the legal relationship is not a marital relationship the rights must be stated and agreed in writing to be protected and enforceable in a court.
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