Living Together Wisely

You've found someone you want to live with, but marriage isn't in the cards right now. Before you move in together, it's a good idea to think through the legal implications of sharing a life and a home. A little bit of communication about your expectations can go a long way toward avoiding future problems.

Ground Rules

When you're not married, you don't have many of the legal protections given to those with a marriage certificate. Until the relationship is firmly established and you have a long history of stability, you'll probably want to:

• Keep separate bank accounts
• Avoid contributing financially to buy an asset which will be held just in your partner's name
• Maintain your ability to support yourself separate and apart from any promises of support made to you by your partner
• Avoid making promises to support your partner, either now or in the future
• Take care not to present yourself as "husband and wife" or adopt the same last name of your partner as if you were married

Cohabitation Agreements

It isn't romantic to plan for a break-up, but it happens just like in marriages - except divorce laws protect both sides when a marriage ends.

More and more unmarried couples living together are putting together a contract - called a cohabitation contract or "living together agreement" that answers some of these questions:

• How will you split living expenses and who will be responsible for paying bills?
• Who's paying the mortgage or rent? Is it an even split or is one person paying less but planning to do more work around the place?
• What happens if you break up? Will your home automatically be put up for sale or rent? How will your property be divided?
• If you end up selling the house, who's going to pay closing costs, repair costs and moving expenses?
• What happens if one person wants to buy out the other? How can you determine a fair price?
• Who currently owns what property and what property will be jointly owned in the future?

Anyone can write and sign a contract - but make sure to do it in front of witnesses. It's not always necessary to get an attorney, but it's almost always safer. And if both parties can afford to get their own attorneys to look over the agreement, that's even better, because neither person can complain later they didn't understand what they were doing in signing the agreement.

Wills and Trusts

The law almost never considers boyfriends and girlfriends the next of kin. So if there's no will, your partner will get nothing should you die. While it's painful to think about, you and your partner should confront these issues now in order to avoid even more heartbreak in the future.

Besides either putting together a will or living trust to distribute your property after your death, it's important to put together "durable power of attorney" and "durable power of attorney for health care" documents. These documents can give your partner the right to make important financial or medical decisions in the event of an accident or illness that leaves you "legally incapacitated."

Statistics prove that all couples living together - heterosexual or gay, unmarried or married - have the same break-up rate - a little over 50 percent.

But until the laws catch up, the only option unmarried couples have to get the same legal protection is to do it themselves.