Ending your relationship when you're not married
If you’ve been involved in a long-term, committed intimate relationship that’s coming to an end, you should know your legal options for dividing property and debts from the relationship.
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1. Fast facts
Washington State doesn’t have common law marriage. To have a valid marriage here, you must have a marriage license and a valid marriage ceremony.
Washington recognizes common law marriages from another state if that state allows them.
Where one partner is age 62 or older, you can register as domestic partners.
But Washington law does recognize long-term, stable marriage-like relationships, and judges can treat these differently in court cases. The legal term for this type of relationship is a Committed Intimate Relationship (CIR). If your relationship is a CIR, there’s a specific court process for ending it.
Answer a few questions on Get Family and Safety Forms to get the right forms for your situation.
If you don’t think you meet the standard to file a CIR case, and you own real property together (land and the buildings on it), you can file a case for partition or to quiet title to ask a judge to decide who owns the real property. You file those in the county Superior Court where the property is. We don’t have forms for those types of cases.
You can file a case asking for the return of personal property in District Court or Superior Court. The District Court limit is $100,000. For more, you must file in Superior Court.
You can file a small claims case in the county where your ex lives if your claim is only for property valued at $10,000 or less, and you’re okay with a judgment for money rather than return of the property.
If you’d rather not go to court, you can try to reach an agreement with your ex. If you can’t on your own, contact a local agency that provides mediation services. Mediation could be cheaper and faster than a court case.