<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"   My boyfriend Ben and I have been living together for nearly a year now and it&amp;#039;s great. Most of the time. (If he eats the last Jaffa Cake without replacing the packet one more time I&amp;#039;ll burn the house to the ground.) Despite being together for eons (six years) we only moved in together last May after jigging around the subject like squiffy Morris Dancers for well over a year. We both like our own space and were terrified that having to deal with each other&amp;#039;s dirty pants might sound the death knell for any lust we once may have shared. But so far so good. He hasn&amp;#039;t murdered me in the cellar yet and I haven&amp;#039;t poured wine on his prized sofa. Great, I thought, that&amp;#039;s that then. Until now. Something was bought to my attention last week that has made me wonder if I wasn&amp;#039;t perhaps a smidgen too gung-ho about this whole living together thing after all.  Cohabitation agreements. Ever heard of them? Nah, me neither\u2026Until recently. They&amp;#039;re basically a pre-nup for living together. A pre-cohab if you will. They spell out exactly what each individual is entitled to in case of a possible break-up. And you can specify anything. That toilet roll holder? Mine. That chipped Arsenal mug with your face superimposed over Tierry Henry&amp;#039;s? Yours. The chickens? OH GOD, WHO GETS THE CHICKENS? (Yes, we have chickens. They live in our little garden and squeeze out eggs every day while making an ear-bleed-inducing amount of noise.) Apparently more and more people are instructing solicitors to draw up these agreements before agreeing to live together. And, er, I can see why. It never crossed my mind for a tiny nano-second to make an agreement with Ben before I moved in about who&amp;#039;ll get what should we ever break-up. And I&amp;#039;m sorry to say that wasn&amp;#039;t due to any smug romantic notion that we&amp;#039;ll never split so won&amp;#039;t need one, it was actually because all of Ben&amp;#039;s stuff was so much nicer than mine I&amp;#039;d have been chuffed to bits to get anything at all. The man has excellent taste in furniture. But obviously these agreements go much deeper than that. Now that it costs a minimum of \u00A31million to get married more and more couples are choosing to just cohabit instead, so one of these agreements could be the only vaguely-legal contract you have protecting your property. Which is actually pretty scary. Say you&amp;#039;re Katy Perry (hey, nice boobs!) and are worth \u00A328million. Your boyfriend is Russell Brand (hey, nice sex drive!) and is worth \u00A34million. You live together, he pees on the toilet seat one too many times, you throw a toilet roll at him and that&amp;#039;s it - Splitsville. Now, in real life Russell Brand refused to take the 50% of anything Katy had earned during their marriage that he was entitled to under Californian law. Nice bloke. But what if they hadn&amp;#039;t been married and what if he wasn&amp;#039;t a nice bloke? He could have fought for a tidy proportion of everything she owned after only 14 months together.  So yes, I can see why cohabitation agreements might be a good idea. More and more judges are recognising pre-nups in divorce hearings which means a pre-cohab will probably stand you in good stead should things turn so nasty you end up in court. But on the flip side they&amp;#039;re about as romantic as dandruff, which has always been the argument against pre-nups: aren&amp;#039;t you planning the end of your relationship before it&amp;#039;s really started? Isn&amp;#039;t it basically saying, &amp;quot;I love you, but get your grubby mitts off my crap&amp;quot;? Or is it just a modern, sensible and practical thing to do?  Call me an old romantic, but I don&amp;#039;t want to fart about drawing a graph that summarises who&amp;#039;s got more right to our bath mat (blatantly me). Neither of us are rich though so don&amp;#039;t have big bucks to lose. I think if you do that&amp;#039;s a different matter altogether. If I win the lottery next Saturday I&amp;#039;ll probably have the draft agreement on Ben&amp;#039;s bedside table by Monday morning, romance be damned. HOW TO GET YOUR MAN TO COMMIT SEE COSMO&amp;#039;S GUIDE TO SHACKING UP WITH YOUR MAN WHEN IS THE RIGHT TIME TO MOVE IN TOGETHER? "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.co.uk/love-sex/sex/a1433/moving-in-with-your-boyfriend-the-new-rules-cohabitation-agreements/>