Cohabitation

Yes, a family court can authorize such an agreement where it is satisfied that both parties have understood its contents and their implications and signed of their own free will , providing appropriate medical statement is obtained showing that the party suffering from Alzheimer’s disease is in the early stages of the progressive disease when he can retain legal capacity.

Yes, although agreements between cohabiting couples are rarely cancelled .

Yes, an agreement would be clearly beneficial to you. A property relations agreement allows the parties to exclude certain property from joint ownership and makes like simpler in the event of a split up. Without making a written agreement a cohabiting woman would be entitled to 50% of property acquired during the time she lived with her man.

Thus, if your girlfriend agrees to co-operate regarding an agreement, then you  can protect your  business interests and hopefully ensure that your share in the home you purchase would be more or less proportional to your investment.

WARNING – A danger exists for a man in this situation who does not protect his interests by drafting an agreement. If he does not have an agreement drafted his girlfriend may have a claim against him in the future if they split up. If, for example, his business was small, or she claims it was, when they met but large and successful when they split up, she could sue him for half of the business’s growth , claiming that it was joint property.

Yes – it makes them easier to actualize, because without an agreement an unmarried spouse must prove his/her status as a cohabitee, plus an intention to share, to be entitled to half of the property acquired during the course of cohabitation. If there is a valid agreement then these rights can be secured in advance, without need for proving entitlement .

Yes, a family court can authorise such an agreement where it is satisfied that both parties have understood its contents and their implications and signed of their own free will , providing appropriate medical statement is obtained showing that the party suffering from Alzheimer’s disease is in the early stages of the progressive disease when he can retain legal capacity. A family court in Israel authorised an agreement between cohabitees where one was in the early stages of the disease, several months after the Jerusalem District Court held that a testator in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease can still have the legal capacity to make a will.

Yes, although agreements between cohabiting couples are rarely cancelled . For example, The Tel Aviv Family Court did so where it found that a family life agreement was totally one-sided and where evidence showed that the woman , who was dependent on the man, was in a totally inferior position. He was well-established and clued-up. She had ‘ signed away her rights’ after living with him for 12 years before making the agreement, although the document gave the impression that they had just met . Evidence showed that the man ,who lived with the woman for a total of 17 years, had told her that if she did not sign the agreement he would not let her move into the new apartment he had bought and would send her packing with just a $10,000 handshake.

The court cancelled the agreement and gave a declaratory judgment stating that the woman had rights to half of one of his apartments and its contents, purchased during the time they lived together, and was entitled to monthly maintenance to support her after their separation, to be paid monthly over a number of years . The woman, who was in her 70’s at the time the court made its decision, had become mentally ill and was living with one of her daughters

Yes, an agreement would be clearly beneficial to you. A property relations agreement allows the parties to exclude certain property from joint ownership and makes like simpler in the event of a split up. Without making a written agreement a cohabiting woman would be entitled to 50% of property acquired during the time she lived with her man.

Thus, if your girlfriend agrees to co-operate regarding an agreement, then you  can protect your  business interests and hopefully ensure that your share in the home you purchase would be more or less proportional to your investment.

WARNING – A danger exists for a man in this situation who does not protect his interests by drafting an agreement. If he does not have an agreement drafted his girlfriend may have a claim against him in the future if they split up. If, for example, his business was small, or she claims it was, when they met but large and successful when they split up, she could sue him for half of the business’s growth , claiming that it was joint property.

Yes – it makes them easier to actualize, because without an agreement an unmarried spouse must prove his/her status as a cohabitee, plus an intention to share, to be entitled to half of the property acquired during the course of cohabitation. If there is a valid agreement then these rights can be secured in advance, without need for proving entitlement .