In this mini tips episode, I explain when you would want to prove you had a common law marriage with a partner, even if you never officially got married. Albeit a confusing legal road, proving common law marriage and then getting a divorce is more inexpensive and likely to receive alimony than if you have to go through civil court to divide assets when your relationship ends.
Show notes:
Common law marriage means that you possibly have been together with a person for a length of time but haven’t gotten married. In Utah that’s called “common law marriage,” but it may be called different things in other states, or not be recognized at all.
In Utah if you’re looking at separating from your long-term partner and therefore want to show that you were in a common law marriage with them, you have to prove that you’ve cohabited, shared the likeness of being married to the world (such as wearing rings or referring to each other as spouses), and acted as if you were married (like filing joint tax returns together, shared bank accounts, purchased real estate together, etc.).
So if you’re looking for post-separation alimony or support, you’ll need to prove and show evidence that you had a common law marriage. Your partner may likely contest it if they don’t want to be responsible for paying those things.
In Utah, there’s a statute of limitations of 1 year from time of breakup. So you only have one year to prove that you had a common law marriage. It’s not super common in Utah because we have such a high marriage rate, so make sure you find an attorney that has experience with common law marriage.
The court will then backdate a “marriage date” based on the evidence (such as the date you bought a house together, for example), and that’s the date they will use in determining how long a partner is eligible to receive alimony post-split (since alimony is usually based on length of marriage).
Some states have made cohabitation laws that will make things easier for splitting up assets. But in Utah, we don’t have that, so you’ll have to pay court fees and hire attorneys that specialize in this. So in Utah, if you’re not married and you’re trying to get court help for dividing assets, and you’re not going the common law marriage route, you actually have to go through civil court instead of domestic court, and you’ll need to pay the civil law court fees (which are double the domestic law fees) and find civil law attorneys to help. If you want to show there was a common law marriage, you can hire a family law attorney and go through domestic court.
You can draft up relationship contracts (similar to pre-nup or post-nup documents) where you outline income and expenses and how things will be divided regarding pre-relationship assets and money and then assets and income earned in the duration of the relationship. It’s a good idea to do if you’re purchasing property together with someone you’re not married to.