Washington doesn’t have common law marriage. What it has instead is a court-made rule called the committed intimate relationship, or CIR, which lets a judge divide the property an unmarried couple built together. This post is part of a series on how that rule works. It answers one question: how long you have to file after the relationship ends, which lawyers call the CIR statute of limitations.
Three years from the day the relationship ended. Miss it and you lose the claim, no matter how long you were together or how much property is in your former partner’s name. The clock runs from the day the relationship ended, which can be the day one of you clearly said it was over rather than the day someone moved out. It doesn’t run from when you found out you had a claim or from when your partner sold the house. And because former partners usually dispute the end date, the safe assumption is the earliest date your former partner could plausibly argue.
Where the CIR statute of limitations comes from
No statute mentions committed intimate relationships, so no statute sets a deadline for them. The Court of Appeals filled the gap in In re Kelly, 170 Wn. App. 722 (2012). A woman sued to establish a CIR more than three years after the couple separated. Division III held: “We conclude that the equitable doctrine of CIR is subject to a three-year statute of limitations. A party must sue to establish that the relationship existed within three years of the end of the relationship.” 170 Wn. App. at 737. The court applied the three-year period in RCW 4.16.080(3), and the Supreme Court declined to review the decision.
Its reasoning matters as much as the number. The court held that a claim to divide CIR property “accrues when a CIR ends.” 170 Wn. App. at 734-35. Until the relationship is over, there’s nothing to sue about, because you’re still sharing the property. The day it ends, the claim exists and the clock starts.
What counts as the end of the relationship
This is the hard part, and it’s where most of the deadline fights happen. Nobody files a document ending a CIR. The Court of Appeals has held that “when a party to a committed intimate relationship expresses the unequivocal intent to end the relationship, that relationship ends,” and that it can end that way even if the two of you keep living in the same house afterward. In re Parentage of G.W.-F., 170 Wn. App. 631, 648-49 (2012). In that case the relationship ended in May 2007 when one partner said it was over, though the couple shared the residence until 2009. Moving out is not the test. The conversation is.
Why the end date is disputed
That rule cuts against the partner without the property. The partner who holds it has every incentive to argue for an early end date, and the same person who says you were never really a couple will also say that whatever you had ended years before you moved out. Common arguments: the relationship ended when one of you moved into a separate bedroom, when one of you started seeing someone else, when one of you said “it’s over” in a text, or when the two of you stopped sharing money. Under G.W.-F., a clear “it’s over” can be enough, so the texts around a breakup conversation matter as much as the move-out date.
Courts look at the same kind of evidence they use to decide whether a CIR existed in the first place: where each of you lived, whether you kept pooling money, whether you presented yourselves as a couple, and what each of you said and wrote. An on-and-off relationship is especially risky here, because each break is a potential end date. In an unpublished 2025 Division I decision, Sammeth v. Ervin, the court affirmed a finding of no CIR at all for a period when the cohabitation wasn’t continuous.
If there’s any argument about when it ended, calendar the earliest plausible date and file before three years from that date. Filing early costs you nothing. Filing late costs you the case.
The CIR statute of limitations doesn’t wait for you
Three things people assume that aren’t true.
It doesn’t start when you learn you have a claim. Most people have never heard of a committed intimate relationship until a lawyer explains it. That doesn’t matter. The claim accrued when the relationship ended, whether or not you knew the law.
It doesn’t start when your partner does something with the property. If your partner refinances the house, sells it, or moves someone else in two years after the split, that’s not a new clock. The three years still runs from the separation.
It doesn’t pause while you negotiate. Talking with your former partner about splitting things up, or waiting to see if they’ll do the right thing, doesn’t stop the clock. If you’re getting close, file and keep talking.
If you lived together and then married
Different rule. If your relationship became a marriage, you don’t need a separate CIR lawsuit for the years before the wedding, and there’s no three-year problem. In a divorce, the pre-marriage CIR is an evidentiary fact the court considers when it characterizes property, and you don’t have to plead it in advance. In re Marriage of Neumiller, 183 Wn. App. 914, 922 (2014). The practical effect is that the divorce court can treat a house bought during the years you lived together before marrying like community property.
Raise it early anyway. In an unpublished 2024 Division III decision, In re Marriage of Ballard, the trial court excluded a premarital CIR theory raised on the day of trial because the other side was unfairly surprised, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. Neumiller says you don’t have to plead it in the petition. It doesn’t say you can spring it at trial.
Two situations where the deadline is unsettled
Bankruptcy during the relationship. If one of you filed bankruptcy while you were still together and didn’t list a CIR claim, that omission doesn’t bar the claim later. The claim hadn’t accrued yet, because the relationship hadn’t ended. In re Committed Intimate Relationship of Amburgey, 8 Wn. App. 2d 779 (2019). Same accrual rule, working in the claimant’s favor.
Death of a partner. If the relationship ended by death rather than breakup, the claim survives against the estate. What’s not settled is how the three-year rule applies when a couple separated, one partner later died, and the survivor first asserts the claim against the estate. An unpublished 2025 Division III decision, In re Estate of Hurd, records the heirs raising exactly that defense but decides the appeal on other grounds. If your partner has died, don’t assume the probate timeline is the only deadline. Talk to a lawyer about both.
Two things you can do now
Write down the end date and why. The day one of you moved out, the last time you shared a bill, the text that ended it. Attach the evidence. Then write down the earliest date your former partner might claim instead, and treat that as your deadline.
If you’re within a year of either date, see a lawyer now. A CIR complaint isn’t a form you fill out. Your lawyer has to draft it, and gathering the records to support it takes time. Don’t arrive at month 35 with nothing prepared.
Common questions
How long do I have to file a committed intimate relationship claim in Washington? Three years from the end of the relationship. The Court of Appeals set that deadline in 2012 by applying a three-year statute of limitations, and the claim accrues when the relationship ends, which can be the day one partner unequivocally says it’s over, even if you keep living together afterward.
What if we disagree about when the relationship ended? The court decides based on the evidence: where you each lived, whether you kept pooling money, how you presented yourselves, and what you said and wrote. Because the property-holding partner will argue for an early date, file before three years from the earliest date they could reasonably claim.
Does the three-year deadline apply if we got married after living together? No. In a divorce, the years you lived together before marrying are a fact the court considers in dividing property, and no separate lawsuit is needed. Raise it early in the divorce anyway, because a court can refuse to hear it if it’s sprung at trial.
This post is part of our series on committed intimate relationships in Washington. Start with the main guide, What is a committed intimate relationship in Washington, and what happens when it ends?, or read about how to prove a CIR existed and what happens when a partner dies.
Last updated September 2026.
Law Offices of Daniel Ehrlich, Everett. Family law in Snohomish, Island, King, and Skagit Counties. (425) 954-5578.
This article is general information, not legal advice. Every case is different. If you’re separating from a partner you never married and there’s property between you, talk to an attorney.
