Partner Agreement
Cohabitation Agreement
Settle property, expenses, debts, and support between partners who live together without marrying — while you agree, rather than when you no longer do.
Available product levels
Advanced Legal Documents
$49.99Deeper planning, state-specific formalities, and supporting documents.
When to use this document
- Moving in together, especially when one partner owns the home
- Buying property, furniture, or a vehicle together
- One partner earning substantially more, or leaving work to care for the household
- Keeping an inheritance, a business, or premarital assets clearly separate
- Partners who have chosen not to marry but want their finances settled in writing
Information you will need
- Both partners' legal names, addresses, and the date you began sharing finances
- A full list of each partner's assets, debts, and annual income for the disclosure schedules
- Whether each partner had separate legal counsel, or knowingly declined it
- How separate property is to be kept separate, and what counts as jointly acquired
- Arrangements for the shared residence, household expenses, and existing debts
- What happens to support and property if the relationship ends, and how notice is given
- The state whose law governs
What you receive
- A seventeen-article Cohabitation Agreement
- Schedule A and Schedule B financial disclosures, one per partner
- Signature blocks for both partners, two witnesses, and a notary acknowledgment
- Completion and signing instructions
- PDF and editable DOCX export
Special situations
- This agreement creates no marriage, civil union, or registered partnership, and signing it does not change your legal status.
- It cannot waive, limit, or fix child support, custody, parenting time, or decision-making. Those are decided by a court on the child's best interests, and a clause attempting otherwise can be disregarded.
- Each partner should have their own lawyer. One lawyer cannot represent you both, and in several states the absence of independent advice weighs heavily against enforcement.
- Support waivers between partners are treated differently from state to state, and some limit or refuse them regardless of what the agreement says.
- If either of you is considering this because of pressure from the other, or because of an imminent deadline, that is the situation these agreements most often fail on. Get advice first.
Jurisdiction
Whether an agreement between unmarried partners is enforced, and on what terms, is governed by state law and varies considerably. Some states recognise informal marriage in defined circumstances; most do not. Property, contract, disclosure, and execution requirements all differ, so the governing state you name determines the rules this agreement is measured against.
Frequently asked questions
Does signing this make us common-law married?
No. The agreement states expressly that it creates no marriage, civil union, domestic-partner registration, or automatic rights from any such status. Only a handful of states recognise informal marriage at all, and where they do it turns on their own requirements — not on having a contract.
Can we agree on child support or custody in this?
No, and the agreement says so. Child support, custody, parenting time, and decision-making are decided by a court applying the child's best interests, and no private contract between partners can waive or predetermine them. A provision attempting it may be disregarded and can raise questions about the rest of the document.
Do we each need our own lawyer?
You should each have one. One lawyer cannot represent both of you, and reviewing a draft for one partner does not make that lawyer the other partner's. Several states weigh the absence of independent advice heavily when deciding whether to enforce an agreement, so the document records each partner's counsel status either way.
What happens if one of us leaves something off the financial schedules?
A material omission or a misleading value can undermine the informed consent the agreement depends on, and signing does not cure incomplete disclosure. In practice the partner who omitted something is usually the one who loses by it, because the agreement they wanted enforced becomes the one at risk.
Can we change it later?
Yes, through the amendment procedure you choose — normally a written change signed by both of you with the same formalities as the original. The agreement also lets you set a review point, because an arrangement that was fair at year one can work very differently after a career change, an illness, or a child.
What if the relationship ends badly?
The termination and division articles set out notice and how things are divided, decided now while you still cooperate. Importantly, the agreement states that no one has to remain in an unsafe residence to satisfy a private notice procedure — safety comes before the contract.
Related documents and guides
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Last reviewed July 29, 2026.