If you’re an unmarried couple who has been together for sometime, you may want to abandon your Agreement to Keep Property Separate and instead treat purchases either party makes as jointly owned.

Use this form to establish that all newly acquired property -- except that given to or inherited by one partner, or that which is clearly specified in writing as separate property -- is to be jointly owned by both, and equally divided if you separate.

Important to Know

• This form contains a space for the acknowledgment of a notary public.  Notarization will add a measure of legal credibility, but isn't legally required.
• Giving or receiving property for the purpose of evading creditors is illegal. An agreement to keep all property separate will protect you from your partner's creditors.

Operating system: Windows- and Macintosh-compatible. The computer you use to purchase an eForm must be the same computer you will download it to. (For example, don't purchase the eForm using your computer at work if you intend to download it later on to your home computer; instead, wait until you're on the computer you intend to download the eForm to and then make your purchase. After you've downloaded the file, you will be able to "transfer" it to another computer by copying it to external media or by email.) In addition, you will not be able to download this file if:

• cookies are disabled on your computer, or
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Software: Before you can use an eForm, additional software must be installed:
To expand the ZIP archive you download after making your purchase, you'll need:

• A decompression utility such as the following, both of which can be downloaded for free:

• 7-Zip (http://www.7-zip.org) (for Windows users).
• StuffIt Expander (http://my.smithmicro.com/mac/stuffit/expander.html) (for Macintosh). Please note: Many recently manufactured Macs have a native capability to decompress zip files. See your computer's user manual for verification of this and instructions for access.

To open, fill out and print an eForm, you need a word processor that "reads" RTF (rich text format) files:

• Windows XP & Vista both come with WordPad, an RTF-compatible word processor.
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