Seeking advice on buying a property for an unmarried couple

[Dennis Cobos]

Hello all!

My girlfriend and I are planning on partnering to buy our first investment property in the Sacramento area in California. We understand the risks that there are in buying a property together since we are not married, and we understand that we need to protect ourselves financially in the eventuality that our relationship ends after we buy the property. We want to get together with a lawyer to create a contract for our partnership, so questions that I have for this are:

• What type of lawyer should we look for to help us create this contract? Real Estate Lawyer? Family Lawyer? Etc?
• Does anyone know of a Lawyer that could help guide us in this in the Sacramento area or East Bay of the SF Bay Area?
• Does it make sense to form an LLC or any other type of entity?
• Anything else related to partnerships that I should be aware of or need to educate myself in more?

My girlfriend found an article called “Homebuying tips for unmarried couples” that discusses some dos and don’ts about this, and I think it makes some valuable points. But I wanted to get some feedback from people who might have been through this situation or know someone who has.

Here is the article: http://www.bankrate.com/finance/real-estate/homebuying-tips-unmarried-couples.aspx

Thank you for any feedback!