Unmarried couples often share mortgage payments while only one owns the home – experts advise cohabitation agreement
A banking expert urges cohabiting unmarried couples to agree on property and mortgage arrangements before buying a home. A cohabitation agreement is one way to define each partner's rights and responsibilities.
Buying a home often happens while a couple is still in an unregistered relationship. While some people purchase property on their own, a significant share of buyers are couples living together without being married. In such cases, it can happen that both partners make mortgage payments, but only one is formally registered as the owner.
Jūlija Pauča, head of Citadele Bank's personal lending department in the Baltics, urges couples to sort out the most important financial and legal issues before concluding the deal. According to her, this helps avoid potential disagreements in the future.
One possible solution is a cohabitation agreement, in which partners can determine how property, credit obligations and other important matters are divided between them. Pauča explains that such an agreement helps arrange the partners' mutual rights and responsibilities.
Experts call on couples who plan to buy a home together but are not yet in a registered relationship to consider this kind of arrangement.
