THE MAKING OF CONTRACTS IN COMMON-LAW MARRIAGES

Abstract

The present paper includes the results of a research project titled ‘The Making of Contracts in Common-Law Marriages’, the purpose of which was to answer the following question: At what moments may permanent partners sign a common-law marriage contract? Based on the hypothetical consideration that such moments may be: before starting the common-law marriage, before constituting the common-law patrimonial company or just after constituting it, a descriptive type of research was used, together with a field design that allowed for the recollection of the necessary information from all the notaries in the Circle of Bogota, through the application of a tool. We also resorted to a bibliographical design for the gathering of secondary data, the main sources of which were doctrine, legislation and jurisprudence. The analysis carried out both quantitatively and qualitatively allowed us to establish that there is a legislative absence regarding the moment in which the mentioned contract may be constituted, which is why public scriptures were found that had been signed at different times