Understanding Common Law Marriage in California

One of the more fascinating aspects of common law marriage is the way that it exposes the problems that can arise when expectations are not clear. Things don’t just happen on their own; they don’t just “become.” Unfortunately, the way that concepts become ingrained in our society can lead to some confusion in practical matters. Consider the issue of comprehensive common law marriage agreements in California. The answer is none. It’s a false question. This does shed some light on the nature of personal relationships as they relate to business dealings, though, and there are some concepts that can be very useful for any business owner or manager to understand as they pertain to IT Contractor agreements.

Possibly stemming from a presumption of permanence, the question of how long a couple has stayed together before they are said to be “common law” as husband and wife tends to be the most often seen question. The fact of the matter is that there is no time limit. The concept of common law marriage has far more to do with the overall nature of the personal arrangement than how long it has been going on. This poses a problem for some people, though, because they will continue to act on the idea that they’re “common law” husband and wife without thinking about the full legal implications of that. This is a trap that catches a lot of people off balance, and when they suddenly try to exit that relationship it can cause a lot of stress and expense. The search phrase that leads to this site seems to be common law marriage in california how many years, since it is the most highly searched phrase suggesting that people presume a time limit exists.

The problem with that sort of expectation is that it leads to the idea that there may be nothing that you can do to prepare yourself against the implications of that agreement until it is too late. The one thing that you really must understand here is that there is a distinct possibility that you are not dealing with a situation that is definite enough to have any legal consequences. Any misconceptions that you might have had about the implications of that relationship are about to be tested.

The trap of assuming the terms of a situation also extends to the written word. Take an IT Contractor that you have been using for some time. He does everything from maintaining your firm’s website to handling database management concerns to taking care of general computer issues as they arise. When you hire him, however, there are no formal agreements drawn up. There are no stipulations regarding his level of expertise or what services are to be rendered. All of these things are things that you simply assumed about the relationship, and that’s an easy thing to do.

The thing to take away from this scenario is that you can save yourself a lot of headaches by clearly defining the nature of your relationship with that contractor. The same goes for any other relationship that is built on agreement. Your personal relationships and your business relationships are both handled much better with pre-defined agreements. The analogy is that these plutonic relationships might turn out to be something more. There are no set laws that say that you have been operating wrong, only that you may not know it yet and once you find out there’s very little recourse.

Clearly defined expectations are a good thing. You should make sure that you don’t wind up looking like you are trying to shortchange your Contractor out of money because you assume that they are only available for certain services. When you go into an IT Contractor agreement expecting to put someone else on the hook to handle your IT issues, take the measures to definitely spell out what you expect from them. Look into future implications. If you assume that this is going to be a permanent arrangement, you should make sure that it really is.