Leonardo Angiulo: The Consequences of Cohabitation
Monday, December 09, 2013
As this column focuses on legal, rather than moral, issues I won't dwell on all the things that your family's priest or other religious leader might say. In fact, there are some that believe how a person chooses to live their life is nobody's business but their own. So long as they're not hurting anyone of course. Unfortunately for the “live and let live” crowd, there are some fairly important practical situations that you need to consider while going apartment hunting with that lucky lady or gentleman.
Thankfully, the state legislature passed “An act legalizing cohabitation” back in 1987 so all those love birds out there can breath easy. That is, however, about the only thing you can legally do together because the crime of “Fornication” pursuant to MGL c. 272, sec. 18 subjects you to incarceration for up to three months for unmarried sexual intercourse. In addition, if your special someone is separated from their spouse and you're just waiting for the divorce to go through, you probably want to wait for a few other things as well. Adultery, it turns out, is not only a criminal offense but is actually a felony carrying up to three years in state prison as a penalty. Given the relatively progressive nature of Massachusetts, it is fair to say that these laws are technically on the books, but aren't generally enforced. Rightly or wrongly, people probably have no reason to be afraid of criminal consequences for engaging in lewd and lascivious cohabitation.
Cohabitation creates unique problems
The real problems don't come while people are happy together. It's when things go bad that cohabitation creates unique problems. The reality is that relationships don't always work out and, if you've had a rocky road up to this point, chances are being shmooshed together in the same space could make things worse. The question you might want to ask yourself is: what is this going to be like in my worse case scenario?
Terrible situation number 1: a restraining order gets issued against you. Nine times out of ten that means, as the defendant, you are out of the shared residence. It generally doesn't matter whether or not the lease, mortgage, deed is in your name or whether you found the cardboard box you guys were sharing. If you've got a restraining order against you, you're finding a new place to live. If your domestic partner has a child, and wants to stay in the residence, you may as well buy a new sleeping bag now because your car will get mighty cold in the winter and finding a new apartment is probably going to take a week or two. Depending on certain circumstances, and the laws of your jurisdiction, if you had been paying bills like rent and utilities before the restraining order you may be required to continue to pay those bills while you're out of the residence or face prosecution for a criminal restraining order violation.
Speaking of children, if your domestic partner does have children and either shares custody, or has visitation, there is the real potential for you to become involved in a family court case. Your involvement can range from the mundane, like interviews with various social services agencies about your criminal history and current lifestyle, to the extreme, like in court testimony regarding your income and financial contributions to the household along with your bank records getting subpoenaed. In some states, how the expenses of a household get paid become a question of fact for things like alimony and child support. Exactly how those issues might come into play is best explained by local practitioners and it might be worth consulting with an Attorney in your particular jurisdiction to get a sense for what you're getting yourself into.
And, depending on where you are, you might just be getting into more than a chance to play house with your heartthrob. Massachusetts does not have what is known as “common law marriage” in some jurisdictions. This is when a cohabitation lasts for a period of time resulting in the law viewing the parties as a legal union. When two people break up there are all kinds of concerns like splitting up debt, splitting up bank accounts and distributing physical property like furniture or jewelry. If you're not in a legal union, family courts usually have no jurisdiction to help you get your stuff back or require the other party to pay debt incurred for the household so you might have a pretty big headache without any help from a judge. Of course, if you are in a jurisdiction with common law marriage you may have an even bigger headache of your own making, and enforced by a judge, if you and the honeybee don't work out. Alimony paid to a girl you never planned on marrying in the first place? Sounds like a nightmare.
Protecting yourself
Let's be honest, no one wants to plan for a relationship to fail but sometimes they do. One thing that can help are contracts called cohabitation agreements, which an Attorney can help you draft. Believe it or not, these are written agreements between romantic roommates that work like prenuptial agreements and define how a domestic partnership may end. This can help eliminate some of the worries that come from trying to make a relationship work by sharing a place. Specifically, it can help prevent short term romances from creating long term financial consequences. While talking to an Attorney now might seem like a problem because of the cost involved, it might save you from even bigger problems later on. At the very least, it might help you know what you are getting yourself into.
Related Slideshow: Human Rights Campaign’s Municipal Equality Index Scorecard - Worcester, MA
HRC's Municipal Equality Index (MEI) demonstrates the ways that many cities can—and do— support the LGBT people who live and work there, even where states and the federal government have failed to do so. GoLocal pulled the data from the 2013 report to show where Worcester excels and where it is lacking in supporting equality in the municipaility.
This year's report rates a total of 291 cities from every state in the nation, representing a total population total of 77,851,822. To see how Worcester compares to other cities, download the full 2013 MEI report here.
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