You are not married but you are separating? You have shared your life with your cohabitee with whom you have had children, you share a joint account, you have bought a house together? You now wish to split up? The law does not provide for anything, we will explain to you how to secure your separation with your cohabitee!

I am not married, I have a house and children with my cohabitee, I am breaking up, what should I do ?

I am in cohabitation how to split up?

Here it is full freedom. The law is silent on the separation of this union between 2 cohabitees. You can therefore determine the consequences of your separation in agreement with your cohabitee. However, being free does not prevent you from foreseeing the consequences of this separation.

Unlike divorce, if you separate from your cohabitee, you do not have to go before a judge, this separation will be done only between you. You will of course have to inform your Caisse d’allocation familiale if you receive benefits linked to your life together.

I am separating, I am not entitled to any compensation from my ex-cohabitee!

In the case of a cohabitation, the break-up cannot be at fault, there is no need to talk about abandoning the marital home because the break-up is free.

You cannot benefit from an indemnity because of this separation. Thus, no compensatory benefit can be received because of this separation.

Exceptionally, if you have suffered a prejudice not because of the separation but because of the circumstances of the separation, you can benefit from an indemnity (your spouse leaves you the day after you move out or just after having incurred important expenses for them). Proving this kind of prejudice is very difficult.

I am separating and we were renting our home, can I stay in the home?

If your name is not on the lease, you do not have the right to stay in the apartment if your cohabitee decides to give notice. However, you can take over the lease from your former cohabitee by requesting a transfer of the lease from your landlord, who will not be able to refuse this transfer provided that you have been living with your cohabitee for at least one year and that the cohabitation was notorious (continuous, stable and known relationship).

If this is not the case, only the agreement of the landlord and the signature of a new lease will allow you to keep the accommodation.

If you are both signatories of the lease, either you give your notice alone or together. Make sure that there is not a joint and several clause in the lease that makes you jointly and severally liable for the payment of the rent owed by your spouse after you have given notice.

How do we divide our property ?

You get back the goods that belong to you (those you bought, that were given to you or offered to you) and they get back theirs.

But who owns the car, the garden furniture, the sofa bought 5 years ago?

If you are unable to determine who is the owner of a good and you bought it together, especially by using a joint account, the good is presumed to belong to you both in joint possession.

You will therefore have to cause the partition of this joint possession by dividing up the joint property, or the sum resulting from the sale of this property, in the absence of proof of the origin of the funds the partition will be equal.

We advise you to close the joint account and to divide the remaining money on the account between you.

If you own a house, it is also joint possession.

You may decide to keep the joint possession of the house, and the occupant of the premises will have to pay an occupancy indemnity (generally corresponding to the payment of rent) to the other spouse. In this case, we advise you to contact an AGN lawyer in your area to draw up a joint possession agreement.

If you want to get out of this joint possession, you will have to provoke the partition of this joint possession. The division can be done amicably by reaching an agreement with your cohabitee. Your cohabitee cannot oppose the partition, if you do not manage to reach an agreement you can ask for a judicial partition.

By provoking the partition two solutions are offered to you:

• Either you sell the property and divide the amount of the sale between you.
• Or you keep the property and your cohabitee pays you a sum of money corresponding to your rights on the property (half the value of the property).

You can ask for the preferential attribution of the property, you have a priority right to buy back the undivided share of your spouse.

I worked in my ex-cohabitee’s company?

Did you work with your ex-cohabitee in their business for a long time? Did you make their business prosper through your work? You can get money from your ex-cohabitee.

You can obtain an indemnity or rights on this company by obtaining the reclassification as a company created in fact or by invoking the theory of unjust enrichment.

I received a donation from my ex-cohabitee?

This is irrevocable. If divorce is a case of revocation of donations between spouses, this is not the case of separation between cohabitees. Thus, if your cohabitee has given you a property, he or she will not be able to take it back by revoking this donation, the donation is irrevocable.

I have children with my cohabitee, how do I organize the custody after the separation?

You will have to choose the place of residence of the children, i.e. alternating custody or sole custody with one parent.

You have two possibilities:

• Either you can agree on the custody of the child, the visiting rights and the alimony without going to a judge
• Or you can choose to settle the situation by going to court.

You can therefore agree on the children’s place of residence by drawing up an oral or written agreement not submitted to a judge to settle all the consequences of the separation, custody of the children, alimony, and visiting rights.

We advise you to secure your separation, especially when it concerns your children, by referring to a family court judge.

You can submit this agreement regulating the consequences of the separation, and the judge will approve the agreement. This agreement allows you to set a legal framework for the separation, and if one of the parents does not fulfill their obligations, notably by not paying the alimony, it will be much easier to obtain the forced payment.

If you cannot agree on the consequences of this separation, you can go to the family court judge, who will determine the conditions of custody of the children, visiting rights and the amount of child support.

You are separating from your cohabitee ? Would you like to make this separation more secure with regard to your assets and your children? Contact an AGN network lawyer in your area, who will advise you on your financial and property situation, draw up an amicable agreement on the fate of your children and inform you of all the difficulties involved in such a situation.