Cohabitation Agreements - Why a Good Idea

Some local news from Anderson gives me the idea for this post. From The Anderson Herald Bulletin's Firefighter's injury may affect arson charge comes this little nugget:

"According to authorities, Duell admitted to using a cigarette to set fire to clothes belonging to her ex-boyfriend and walking away while they burned. The two were involved in what Anderson police describe as a “bitter domestic dispute.” Duell was in custody at the Madison County Jail on Friday."

Let me put this in perspective by first explaining how severe is the crime of arson. Duell is looking at a Class A or B felony. The following describes the time one can be sentenced for either class of arson:

IC 35-50-2-4
Class A felony
Sec. 4. A person who commits a Class A felony shall be imprisoned for a fixed term of between twenty (20) and fifty (50) years, with the advisory sentence being thirty (30) years. In addition, the person may be fined not more than ten thousand dollars ($10,000).

IC 35-50-2-5
Class B felony
Sec. 5. A person who commits a Class B felony shall be imprisoned for a fixed term of between six (6) and twenty (20) years, with the advisory sentence being ten (10) years. In addition, the person may be fined not more than ten thousand dollars ($10,000).

I have concluded that people are not interested in cohabitation agreements because of one of the following reasons:

1. They do not see the utility of a cohabitation agreement.
2. They fear the costs.

This story shows the utility and that the costs can skyrocket far past the cost of a lawyer writing an agreement. Let me explain a bit more about how this paragraph does what I claim it does.

First, a written agreement would have limited the dispute between the parties and salved some of the bitterness. Therein lies the usefulness of a cohabitation agreement.

Second, the boyfriend's property would still be intact and he would not now be shopping for replacements. That shopping will cost far, far more than a cohabitation agreement.

Third, it would have reduced and/or shifted the costs of litigating the cohabitation agreement. I think that might have also salved some of the bitterness (and I know that I assume "domestic dispute" means litigation).

Fourth, there is no way that the possibility of a prison term of between 6 and 50 years is less costly than paying a lawyer to write a cohabitation agreement. It is even less costly to hire an attorney to litigate a cohabitation agreement than going to prison.