Cohabitation Agreement Template | Family Law Act s.53

A cohabitation agreement is a private contract between two people who live together in a conjugal relationship without being married, or who intend to start. It records each partner's rights and obligations while they cohabit, on separation, and sometimes on death. The agreement can set out who owns what, how a jointly occupied home is treated, how debts are split, whether one partner pays or receives spousal support, and how shared expenses run day to day. It cannot dictate parenting outcomes : a court still decides decision-making responsibility and parenting time based on the child's best interests, and child support belongs to the child, not the parents.

People often confuse three documents. A cohabitation agreement is signed by unmarried partners. A marriage contract (the Canadian term for a prenup) is signed by spouses who are married or about to marry. A separation agreement is signed once a couple has already decided to split and need to divide their affairs. The line blurs in one important way: in several provinces a cohabitation agreement is deemed to become a marriage contract if the same couple later marries, unless the document says otherwise. That single mechanism is why so many agreements drafted at the kitchen table create surprises years later. A template that ignores it, or that treats common-law and married status as interchangeable, is the wrong document for the situation.

Cohabitation agreements sit at the intersection of provincial family legislation and ordinary contract law, and the rules shift depending on where the couple lives. In Ontario, the Family Law Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. F.3 is the controlling statute. Section 53 expressly authorises two people who are cohabiting or intend to cohabit, and who are not married, to agree on their respective rights and obligations during the relationship, on separation, or on death. The companion provision, section 55(1), sets the formality that decides enforceability: a domestic contract is unenforceable unless it is in writing, signed by both parties, and witnessed. An oral understanding about property or support, however sincere, is not a domestic contract. You can read the consolidated statute on the Ontario government's official Family Law Act text.

The married-versus-common-law distinction drives everything. Ontario gives married spouses equalisation of net family property under Part I of the Act, but grants no equivalent property right to common-law partners, which is precisely why the agreement carries so much weight for unmarried couples. British Columbia takes the opposite approach: under its Family Law Act, SBC 2011, c. 25, partners who have lived together in a marriage-like relationship for at least two years are treated almost identically to married spouses for property division. Alberta uses a third model, recognising adult interdependent partners under the Adult Interdependent Relationships Act and the Family Property Act. An Alberta agreement signed before the couple actually qualifies as adult interdependent partners can be challenged, so the document should address that timing directly. Across every common-law province, courts scrutinise the same things before enforcing a contract: honest and complete financial disclosure, the absence of pressure or duress at signing, and terms that are not unconscionable. Independent legal advice is rarely a strict legal requirement, but its absence is one of the most common reasons a judge later sets an agreement aside. The federal Divorce Act does not apply here at all, since it governs married spouses seeking divorce, not the breakdown of a common-law relationship.

The clearest trigger is the decision to move in together when the two people arrive with unequal assets. One partner owns the condo, the other is paying down student debt; one runs an incorporated business, the other has a pension. Putting the agreement in place before the boxes are unpacked is the textbook scenario, because it is the moment when nobody can later argue they were rushed or cornered. A close second is the shared-home purchase, where partners take title together but contribute very different down payments and want a record of who gets what if they part. Our Canadian purchase and sale agreement template often sits alongside a cohabitation agreement in exactly this situation, since the property paperwork and the relationship paperwork need to say the same thing.

Blended families are another frequent reason. A partner with children from an earlier relationship usually wants to protect assets intended as an inheritance, and the agreement is where that intention gets written down. Couples who are already living together and have simply never papered the arrangement also reach for one, often after a friend's messy split makes the risk concrete. It is never too late to sign : an agreement made years into a relationship is still valid if it meets the statutory formalities. One edge case worth flagging is the couple who plans to marry eventually. Because the agreement may convert into a marriage contract on the wedding day, they should decide now whether they want that automatic conversion or a clause that ends the agreement at marriage. Another edge case is the partner financing a renovation on a home titled in the other's name : without a written term, the contributor's claim later depends on fact-heavy trust litigation rather than a clear paragraph.

• The identification of the parties and relationship status opens the agreement and states plainly that the couple is unmarried and cohabiting or about to. This matters because the document's entire legal character depends on it, and a contract that muddles common-law and married status invites a challenge.
• The property and asset schedule lists what each partner brings in and how property acquired during the relationship will be treated. It distinguishes assets kept separate from those intended to be shared, and it addresses the home specifically, since unmarried partners do not get the matrimonial-home protections that married spouses enjoy.
• The debt and financial responsibility clause sets out who is liable for existing debts and how joint expenses, the mortgage, and household costs are divided. Clear wording here prevents one partner from absorbing the other's pre-relationship liabilities by accident.
• The spousal support provision records whether support will be paid on separation, in what amount, and for how long, or whether each partner waives it. Courts examine support waivers closely, so the clause is drafted with the numbers and reasoning documented rather than left as a bare "support is waived".
• The financial disclosure acknowledgment confirms that both partners exchanged honest information about income, assets, and debts before signing. Incomplete disclosure is the single most common ground for setting an agreement aside, so this clause does real protective work.
• The dispute resolution and review clause explains how disagreements get handled and when the agreement should be revisited, such as on the birth of a child, a marriage, or a major change in income. A built-in review trigger keeps the document from going stale.

Ontario offers no statutory property division to common-law partners, which makes the cohabitation agreement the main tool for creating property rights the law does not otherwise supply. The agreement is governed by section 53 of the Family Law Act and must satisfy the writing, signature, and witness rule in section 55(1). Couples should remember the section 53(2) deeming rule: if they marry, the agreement becomes a marriage contract unless they opt out in writing. Without an agreement, a partner seeking a share of property is left to unjust enrichment or constructive trust claims, which Ontario courts treat as fact-intensive and uncertain.

British Columbia is the outlier among common-law provinces. Under the Family Law Act, SBC 2011, c. 25, partners who cohabit for two years in a marriage-like relationship gain property and support rights close to those of married spouses, with family property generally divided equally. A cohabitation agreement in BC is therefore used to contract out of that default sharing, and the courts will respect it only where disclosure was full and the terms are not significantly unfair. Drafting that simply mirrors an Ontario agreement misses the point, because the starting position is opposite.

Alberta recognises common-law couples as adult interdependent partners under the Adult Interdependent Relationships Act, with property dealt with under the Family Property Act. Status arises after three years of cohabitation, on having a child together, or by signing a formal adult interdependent partner agreement. An agreement executed before that status exists can be vulnerable, so Alberta documents often declare the partners adult interdependent or provide for re-execution once the threshold is met. For families weighing how an agreement fits with later estate planning, our Canadian wills and powers of attorney documents cover the succession side that a cohabitation agreement deliberately leaves alone.

Other provinces follow their own thresholds. Saskatchewan extends family property rules after two years of continuous cohabitation, while Manitoba does so after three years or on registration of the relationship with its Vital Statistics Agency. The practical lesson is consistent across the country: the agreement must be drafted to the province where the couple actually lives, because the default rights it modifies are different in each one.

You start by selecting your province, since that single choice determines which statute governs the agreement and which default property and support rules it is written against. From there the form asks for the full legal names of both partners and confirms your relationship status, then walks you through the financial picture each of you brings to the relationship. You enter assets, debts, income, and any property you want to keep separate, and the template builds the disclosure schedule from those answers so the record of who told what is created as you go. The form then asks how you want to treat the shared home, how household expenses and debts are divided, and whether spousal support will be paid or waived on separation. Where the choices carry legal weight, such as a support waiver, the wording is drafted to the language courts expect rather than left vague. You finish by adding the date and the witness details required for a valid domestic contract, then download the completed agreement in Word and PDF. If your circumstances later change, our family and divorce document collection includes the separation and parenting documents you may need next.

The mistake that ends more agreements than any other is thin financial disclosure. A partner who hides or rounds down income, assets, or debts hands the other a ready-made argument to have the whole contract set aside, and judges routinely accept it. Closely related is signing under pressure : an agreement produced the night before moving day, or just before a wedding, looks coercive in hindsight even when it was not, which is why timing the signature well ahead of any deadline protects both sides. Skipping independent legal advice is the third recurring error. It is not always strictly mandatory, but its absence is one of the first things a court notices when a partner asks to escape an agreement that turned out badly.

People also reach for the wrong document or the wrong version of it. Using a married-couple marriage contract for an unmarried relationship, or ignoring the rule that a cohabitation agreement can convert into a marriage contract on marriage, creates terms that quietly stop meaning what the couple intended. Others try to lock in parenting or child support outcomes, which courts will not enforce because those belong to the child. Finally, an oral understanding is not a contract at all : without writing, signatures, and a witness, there is nothing to enforce. Couples who later separate and need to formalise the split should move to a proper Canadian separation and family law agreement rather than relying on what they once discussed.