“It’s always interesting when I ask clients
“do you want me to write in this contract that
should you break up you would be treated as if
you were married in a mediation or arbitra
tion situation?’ Obviously, we can’t force the
courts to do that.‘Do you want to agree to just
arbitrate any dispute, and direct the arbitrator
to divide the property as if you were married,
applying the laws of marital distribution?’
Depending on who that is an advantage or
disadvantage to, you get different reactions,”
Thompson offers. “They may be out there
politically working for gay marriage, but when
it comes right down to their own situations,
sometimes they take a second look at it.”
Thompson wants couples in the LGBT
community “to have integrity in their rela
tionships.” She says she’s now starting to see
same-sex parents splitting up and fighting
over custody. If it’s a case where they did not
take the time and trouble to protect the sec
ond parent’s rights, then the parent with
rights is tempted to take advantage of the
other parent. The same thing is true with
property.
“I think parents are a little more moti
vated to do paperwork, for the children’s
sake,” she says. “But people do not do prop
erty agreements at all. So when they split
up, if the property was all in one person’s
name, and all along they said,‘Oh, don’t
worry dear, it’s 50-50,’ and ‘Honey, of course
you own it 50-50 even though you’ve given
up your job and you’re staying home to be a
house mom or a house dad,’ but then when
they break up it’s ‘Sorry, the deed’s in my
name.’ And without agreements, you’re
RE G I O N A L
absolutely out of luck. Without agreements,
you may have no rights whatsoever.”
Couples who’ve been together 20 years or
more, Thompson says, are certain to lose rights
that married people have — such as entitle
ment to each other’s retirement — without
this kind of paperwork. If couples want to
share property that way, it can be provided for.
They can do an agreement that each promises
to name the other as beneficiary of his or her
retirement account, and then if they don’t do it,
it’s possible to sue for breach of contract.
“The other thing that I always find fasci
nating, but not surprising, is that when I ask
‘well, did you ever talk about how you’re going
to own this property and what — given that
you’re contributing in different ways — if you
ever broke up, what might happen?’ And near
ly everybody — 95 percent — says ‘oh well,
we never really talked about it.’
“Even if you think money’s not an issue,”
she says, “talk about it and at least put it in
writing yourself. Maybe it’s not an enforceable
contract because you did it yourself but it
would be evidence of what your intent was. It
would show that in December 2005 you told
me and we wrote up this agreement that this
car that you bought is my car. Things like that.”
The LGBT community has to a lot of leg-
work to get even a portion of the rights and
protections that marriage grants heterosexual
couples automatically, she says. But it’s very
important that couples do it.
“You have to take on the burden of educat
ing yourself so you can be sure that your
lawyer or any other professional is represent
ing you well,” Thompson says. “But I do feel in
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this day and age ■— versus when I started out
— there’s a lot of information out there, on
various websites.
“You do have to educate yourself about
these issues,” she emphasizes. I
For more information:
* “A Legal Guide For .lesbian & Gay Couples” (25 th
Anniversary Ed)
by Hayden Curry, Denis Clifford, & Frederick Hertz
Nolo Press, $34.99
* “Estate Planning for Same-Sex Couples”
by Joan M. Burda
American Bar Association, $59.00
On the web:
* The American Civil Liberties Union has some useful
information on their website;
Protect Your Relationship
www.aclu.org/getequal/rela/protecLhtml
* Lambda Legal Defense, a national organization, has a
number of useful artides on their website, induding:
Relationship Recognition and Benefits
www.lambdalegal.org/cgi-bin/iowa/documents/
record2.html?record=l497
Protecting Families: Standards for Child Custody in Same-
sex Relationships
www.lambdalegal.org/cgi-bin/iowa/news/
publications.html?record=404
* National Center for Lesbian Rights, according to
Thompson, is the best source for information‘on gay
parenting issues;
www.nclrights.org
* North Carolina Gay and Lesbian Attorneys, a statewide
organization, has useful material in their “Legal Guide”
section:
www.ncgala.org
* North Carolina Religious Coalition for Marriage Equality
www.ncrc4me.oig
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