Washington does not have a common law marriage.  Instead, unmarried cohabitants can go to court to have their property divided under the “Committed Intimate Relationship” doctrine, often abbreviated CIR.  In a prior blog post, I’ve written about the factors courts consider in determining whether parties were, in fact, in a CIR.  Those factors are critical because, before a court can divide your property akin to a marriage, the court must first find that there was a CIR; if there was no CIR, the case ends and there is nothing to divide.

Assuming those factors are established, what are the differences between CIRs and traditional marriages?  Though it is a nuanced question, here are three general distinctions to be aware of:

3. No Alimony. The Washington legislature refers to alimony as “spousal maintenance.”  As the name suggests, spousal maintenance applies to spouses.  By definition, unmarried cohabitants are not spouses.  It follows that the courts have declined to award parties in a CIR spousal maintenance, reasoning that the legislature has limited the applicability of maintenance to those who were married; therefore, it would be improper to expand the scope of who may receive maintenance to unmarried cohabitants.
4. Separate Property will Not be Divided. In a divorce, all property owned by the parties must be characterized as either community or personal property.  Generally, community property is property acquired during the marriage, and separate property is owned before marriage and after separation.  (There are other kinds of separate property, too, such as one person’s inheritance acquired during the marriage.)  Those same characterization principles apply to CIRs—if there is a CIR, then all property acquired during the CIR is community property.  However, while separate property is subject to division in a divorce, separate property in a CIR is not.
5. Little Chance of Attorney Fees. Financially, parties undergoing a divorce are not always on a level playing field.  One spouse may ask the other to pay his or her attorney fees.  Typically, fees are awarded where (1) one spouse needs financial help, and (2) the other spouse has the ability to pay.  Not so in a CIR.  Again, the legislature has said this applies to divorce proceedings, and courts have not expanded the scope to reach CIR matters.  Your only chance of being awarded fees in a CIR is to show that the other party was “intransigent,” meaning they made the litigation unduly difficult and needlessly expensive.

If you have questions about CIRs or other Family Law matters, the Family Law team at Lasher is ready to help.