In the Eyes of the Law: Legal and Financial Protections
Chapter Six
In too many situations, unmarried partners are considered legal strangers no matter how long they've been together. Understanding what rights you do and don't have as an unmarried couple, and taking the steps to protect yourselves, are critically important for couples who plan to stay together unmarried for any length of time. In this chapter you'll find:
- The four documents that make up your legal safety net, and how to prepare them with or without a lawyer
- The truth about the "marriage penalty" and the "marriage bonus" -- will getting hitched increase or decrease your tax bill?
- How common law marriage works, and why it's not as common as you may have thought
- Which car rental companies will allow unmarried couples to list both partners as drivers without paying a "second driver" fee
- Information on the legality of renting or buying a home together as an unmarried couple
- Options for how to manage your money together or separately
- A sample cohabitation agreement you can modify and use as a basis for your own agreement
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What you can do to ensure you'll be able to make decisions for your partner in case of a medical emergency
- Why wills are important for unmarried partners of any age, even if it's just to decide who gets to clean out the drawer with your old love letters
- Which legal protections are simply not available to unmarried partners (these can be an important factor in the decision to get married or not)
Want to "look inside" this chapter? You can download six pages of it (as an Adobe Acrobat file) here.
Go back to the full chapter list, or chose from the chapter topics below:
Considering Cohabitation | Why Aren't You Married? | Pressure and Discrimination | Staying Together | Naming Each Other | Legal and Financial Protections | Domestic Partner Benefits | Commitment Ceremonies | Unmarried With Children | To Marry or Not? | Cohabitation's Past and Future
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