Free Cohabitation Agreement Template (Unmarried Couples, 2026)

Free Cohabitation Agreement Template for Unmarried Couples

Choosing to build a life together without getting married is an ordinary, valid decision, and more couples make it every year. It is worth knowing one thing, though: the law does not see your relationship the way it sees a marriage. A cohabitation agreement is how you fill that gap. Putting your understanding in writing is not a sign you expect things to go wrong. It is a quiet act of care, for both of you, while things are good.

This guide explains what the agreement does, gives you a full template you can copy from the page, and shows how to make it hold up. Your author here is Sarah Jenkins, who writes our family and estate-planning guides.

What Marriage Gives Automatically, and What You Have to Put in Writing

Here is the part that surprises most couples. Marriage comes with a long list of default legal protections that switch on by themselves. Living together, even for many years, switches on almost none of them. The table below shows the gap, and how the right documents close it.

Notice the middle column. The common belief that an unmarried couple’s property gets split down the middle is the opposite of the truth. Community property and equitable distribution are rules for married couples. As an unmarried partner, the risk is not an unfair 50/50 split. It is getting nothing you cannot prove you own. That is exactly what the agreement prevents.

What Happens Without an Agreement: Three Real Situations

The gap in the table above is easy to skim past when things are good. It becomes very real in three ordinary moments. None of these require anyone to behave badly; they are how the law treats an unmarried couple when there is no agreement in place.

• The home you both paid for. You put money into the down payment and the monthly costs, but the deed is in your partner’s name. If you separate, the law generally starts from the title, not your contributions. To claim your share you would have to prove it in court, with records, and hope a judge agrees. An agreement that names your percentage settles it before it ever becomes a fight.
• A death without a will. If your partner dies and left no will, intestacy law steps in, and an unmarried partner is not on the list. The estate passes to blood relatives, a spouse from a prior marriage, or the state, and you could inherit nothing, even from a home you shared for a decade. Only a will, a trust, or a beneficiary designation changes that.
• A medical emergency. Your partner is in the hospital and cannot speak for themselves. Without a medical power of attorney naming you, the default decision-makers under most state laws are a spouse, adult children, or parents, not a partner, and in a hard moment you may not even have a clear right to visit.

A cohabitation agreement handles the first situation directly. The second and third are why this guide keeps pointing you toward a will and a power of attorney: the agreement protects your property between the two of you, and those documents protect you at death and in a crisis.

What a Cohabitation Agreement Covers

A good agreement is calm and specific. It walks through the money questions while you can still talk them through kindly, so a future disagreement has a clear answer waiting. The core sections are:

• Separate property. What each of you owned before, and what stays yours alone (gifts, inheritances, anything in your own name).
• Joint property. What you buy together, and the share each of you holds. If you put in $50,000 and your partner puts in $30,000, you can write the split as whatever you both agree, and the title alone will not decide it later.
• Living expenses. Who pays what. Rent or mortgage, utilities, groceries, by percentage or dollar amount.
• Bank accounts and debts. Which accounts are joint, which are separate, and who is responsible for which debts.
• The home. Often the largest asset, so it deserves its own section: who owns what percentage, and what happens to it if you separate.
• Separation. How you will divide things, and any support one partner will provide for a transition period.

One thing it cannot do: decide custody or child support. Those are set by a court under family law, in the child’s best interest, and no private contract can override them. If you are raising children together, you will want a separate parenting plan.

Free Cohabitation Agreement Template (Copy & Paste)

Here is a plain-English template you can copy straight from the page. Replace every bracketed field with your own details, delete any section that does not apply, and read the next section on making it enforceable before you sign.

This template is a starting point, not finished legal advice. The next section explains how to make it stand up.

How to Make It Hold Up

Courts in most states will enforce a cohabitation agreement as a regular contract, a principle that traces back to the 1976 California case Marvin v. Marvin. That case confirmed unmarried partners can enforce agreements about property and support, as long as the promise is not made purely in exchange for the relationship itself. Written agreements are far easier to enforce than spoken ones, which is the whole reason to put yours on paper. A few habits make the difference:

• Be specific. Replace soft words like “fair” or “reasonable” with numbers, dates, and percentages. “Partner 1 pays 60% of utilities” leaves nothing for a judge to guess.
• Disclose everything. Both partners should list their income, assets, and debts honestly. Hidden facts are a common reason agreements get thrown out.
• Sign freely, with time to think. Do not present it the night before a move. Give each other room to read it, and ideally to have separate attorneys review it.
• Sign formally. Sign in front of a notary, and add witnesses if your state expects them. Then store the original somewhere safe.
• Have a local attorney review it. Property and contract rules vary by state. A short review confirms your agreement fits your state’s requirements before you rely on it.

Cohabitation Agreement vs. Prenup, Will, and Domestic Partnership

People often ask whether a cohabitation agreement replaces one of these other documents. It does not; each does a different job, and most couples need more than one. Here is how they line up:

The short way to remember it: a cohabitation agreement governs your money while you are alive and together, a will governs it after you die, and a prenup carries the same ideas into a future marriage. A domestic partnership, where it exists, is a separate status you opt into, not a substitute for a written agreement.

Cohabitation Is Not Common-Law Marriage

It is easy to mix these up, so it helps to be clear. A cohabitation agreement is a contract. It does not make you married, and it is not the same as common-law marriage. Only a handful of states still let couples form a new common-law marriage today: Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Texas, Utah (by court order), and the District of Columbia. New Hampshire recognizes it for inheritance only. Most states never had it, or abolished it long ago.

Even in the states that allow it, common-law marriage is not something that happens by accident after a certain number of years. It generally requires that you both presently agree to be married and that you hold yourselves out to the community as a married couple, using the same last name, filing joint taxes, calling each other spouses. Because it is proven after the fact, usually in a dispute, it is an unreliable thing to count on. A cohabitation agreement is the opposite: clear, written, and settled in advance. If you want the protections of marriage, marry or use written documents; do not rely on common-law status filling the gap.

Do You Need a Lawyer for a Cohabitation Agreement?

For many couples, a clear written agreement built from a solid template is enough, especially when your finances are roughly equal and your situation is simple. The template on this page is designed exactly for that. There are situations, though, where a short consultation with a family-law attorney is money well spent:

• A large gap in assets or income between the two of you, where one partner has much more to protect.
• Real estate held in one name that you both pay for, or a home you plan to buy together.
• A business that one or both of you own, or will build during the relationship.
• Children from a prior relationship, or a blended family where inheritance questions get complicated.
• A prior divorce with ongoing support or property obligations.

You do not have to choose all-or-nothing. A common middle path is to draft the agreement yourselves from the template, then pay for an hour of an attorney’s time to review it against your state’s rules before you sign. That keeps costs down while making sure the document actually holds up.

Keep the Rest of Your Plan in Sync

Because you do not have a spouse’s automatic rights, the cohabitation agreement is only part of the picture. To fully protect each other, most unmarried couples also sign three estate-planning documents: a last will and testament so your partner can inherit, a medical power of attorney so they can make health decisions for you, and a financial power of attorney for money matters. For larger estates, a revocable living trust can help your partner avoid probate. If you later decide to marry, a prenuptial agreement carries the same ideas into the marriage.

Think of it as a small set of documents that work together: the cohabitation agreement for your life together, the will and trust for what happens after, and the powers of attorney for the moments in between. Signed while things are good, they are one of the kindest things two people can do for each other.

Frequently Asked Questions

What happens to our property if we break up without an agreement?

Without an agreement, there is no automatic 50/50 split for unmarried couples. Community property and equitable-distribution rules apply to married couples, not to you. In general, each partner keeps whatever is in their own name, and the partner who paid for something they cannot prove they own may walk away with nothing. Sorting out shared property usually means a costly court claim. A written agreement avoids that by deciding it in advance.

Is a cohabitation agreement legally binding?

Yes, in most states a cohabitation agreement is enforceable as a contract, as long as it is entered voluntarily, with honest financial disclosure, and is not based purely on the relationship itself. A signed, notarized, specific written agreement is far stronger than a spoken understanding. Having a local attorney review it before signing is the safest path.

Does living together for seven years make us common-law married?

No. The “seven years” idea is a myth. Most states do not recognize common-law marriage at all, and the few that do require more than time living together, such as agreeing to be married and presenting yourselves publicly as a married couple. A cohabitation agreement does not create a marriage and is not meant to.

Can a cohabitation agreement decide custody of our children?

No. Child custody and child support are decided by a family court under the child’s best interest, and a private agreement cannot override that. If you have children together, set up a separate parenting plan. The cohabitation agreement stays focused on property and finances between the two of you.

Do we still need a will if we have a cohabitation agreement?

Yes, and it is one of the most important steps for an unmarried couple. A cohabitation agreement governs your property while you are together and if you separate. It does not control what happens when one of you dies. Without a will, an unmarried partner usually inherits nothing, because intestacy laws favor blood relatives. Sign a will (and ideally a power of attorney) alongside your agreement.

How often should we update it?

Review the agreement after any major change: buying a home, a big shift in income, starting a business together, having a child, or an inheritance. Reading it over together every couple of years keeps it matching your real life.

Sarah Jenkins

Sarah Jenkins writes about family law and estate planning for ClearLegalTips. She focuses on making wills, trusts, divorce, and custody decisions understandable for everyday readers handling them without a lawyer.