An aspect that many of these types of cohabiting couples should take into account is the lack of legal rights that they have compared to legally wed couples in regards to illness, death, and finances. A cohabitation agreement is a legally binding document which outlines each person’s rights upon death or separation. Without this document then it is possible to lose the assets that were accumulated together, to living descendants and family members of the deceased partner. Hannah (2010) is a family law attorney and mentioned the importance of a cohabitation agreement between cohabiting adults when she stated, “Couples that continue to cohabit without the benefit of marriage should do so only with a cohabitation agreement. Practitioners must consider each client’s special circumstances, needs, and expectations. Drafting must specifically address the division of assets and liabilities, taxation, and specific issues pertaining to the parties while taking into consideration the law of particular jurisdiction as well” (p. …show more content…
This is reinforced once again by Guerrero, Anderson, & Afifi (2014) who mentioned that “Couples who cohabit before marriage are more likely to get divorced than couples who move directly to marriage” (p. 262). Of course, some couples are exceptions to the norm, but couples who choose to cohabit usually are more likely to separate than couples who choose to date and then move to the marriage stage. This study has helped find information correlating to persons’ cohabiting being less educated than their married counterparts and married couples obtaining more wealth than people who cohabit as