When you and your partner decide to commit to a relationship, you might opt to establish a domestic partnership instead of getting married. A domestic partnership can give you some of the same protections as a marriage. If you recall, we discussed some of those protections in our previous blog post.
We know that you want to ensure your domestic partnership is established in a legal manner. We can help you to ensure that you have everything you need to make your domestic partnership agreement legally valid.
There are several points that you have to consider when you are establishing a domestic partnership. As you work through each consideration, you have to put your agreements in writing so that you can formalize them. This also gives you something to refer back to if you have to end your domestic partnership or if you are dealing with an emergency.
As part of your domestic partnership, you should work on drawing up an advance health care directive. In this document, you can give your domestic partner medical powers of attorney so that he or she can make choices for you if you are unable to do so yourself.
If you and your domestic partner acquire assets or have children, you can stipulate what will happen to those if your relationship ends. You can even cover how debts will be handled in the domestic partnership agreement.
It is important for you to understand what you can and should cover in the domestic partnership documents you draw up. We can help to answer your questions and guide you along the way.
