No. If you registered a California domestic partnership and later married the same person, the wedding did not end the partnership on its own. California law treats the partnership and the marriage as two separate legal relationships. Ending the partnership takes a formal step. A court can dissolve the partnership and the marriage together in one proceeding.
Most people facing this question registered years ago, often when marriage was not open to them. Later they married the same partner and assumed the older paperwork simply folded into the newer one. Now a separation is on the table, or one partner has found the old certificate, and the couple is unsure what legally exists between them and what it would take to end it.
This article covers four things. It explains what a registered domestic partnership is. It walks through the two ways California law lets partners end one. It explains why the partnership still matters after a marriage. It also covers the harder fact patterns, including a partnership with one person and a marriage to someone else.
The Short Answer: Marriage Does Not Automatically End a Domestic Partnership
Family Code section 299(e) states the rule plainly: "Parties to a registered domestic partnership who are also married to one another may petition the court to dissolve both their domestic partnership and their marriage in a single proceeding." The statute speaks of dissolving both. That wording treats the partnership and the marriage as two relationships that exist side by side. It does not describe one relationship that replaced the other.
In practical terms, a couple who married their domestic partner without first ending the partnership most likely still has an active registered domestic partnership on file with the California Secretary of State. The partnership is not dormant. It is not overwritten. It also does not quietly lapse with time. The rights and duties attached to it stay in place until the partnership is formally ended.
For many couples this comes as a surprise, especially when the marriage felt like the "real" legal step. The good news in section 299(e) is procedural. Partners who are ending both relationships do not have to bring two unrelated cases. A court can handle the partnership and the marriage together.
What a Registered Domestic Partnership Is Under California Law
A registered domestic partnership is a legal status that two adults create by filing a Declaration of Domestic Partnership with the California Secretary of State. Under Family Code section 297, domestic partners are "two adults who have chosen to share one another's lives in an intimate and committed relationship of mutual caring." Section 297 sets out the requirements that must be met when the declaration is filed:
- neither person is married to someone else or in another unended domestic partnership;
- the two are not related by blood in a way that would bar them from marrying in California;
- both are at least 18, with a limited exception; and
- both are capable of consenting.
The partnership that carries spousal rights under state law is the one created through that Secretary of State filing. A city registry, or a partner listing kept by an employer for benefits, is a different thing. It is not the state registration that sections 297 and 297.5 describe.
The rights of state-registered partners are broad. Family Code section 297.5(a) provides that registered domestic partners "shall have the same rights, protections, and benefits, and shall be subject to the same responsibilities, obligations, and duties under law" as spouses. Those rights include community property, meaning the property California treats as owned equally by the couple. They also include support duties and the same rights and obligations toward a child of either partner. This expansion came through AB 205 (Stats. 2003, ch. 421). From January 1, 2005, registered domestic partners have the rights and duties of spouses, whenever they registered.
History explains why so many couples hold both a partnership and a marriage. In November 2008, California voters approved Proposition 8, which provided that only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California. California allowed no new same-sex marriages from November 2008 until after Hollingsworth v. Perry was decided on June 26, 2013. That case decided standing only: the petitioners did not have standing to appeal the District Court's order, and the Ninth Circuit's judgment was vacated and remanded. During those years, registering a domestic partnership was the state-law option available to same-sex couples. Many of them married later, once they could. A longer account of that timeline appears in the site's overview of gay marriage in California.
Two Paths to Ending a Domestic Partnership in California
California law sets out two routes for ending a registered domestic partnership. One is a filing with the Secretary of State. The other is a court proceeding. Which route fits depends on the facts of the partnership itself, not on the fact that the partners later married.
Path 1: summary termination with the Secretary of State. Under Family Code section 299(a), partners can end a partnership without going to court by filing a Notice of Termination of Domestic Partnership. This route is open only if all of the following are true at the time of filing:
- Both partners sign the notice.
- There are no children of the relationship, whether born before or after registration or adopted after registration, and neither partner, to their knowledge, is pregnant.
- The partnership is not more than five years in duration.
- Neither partner has any interest in real property anywhere. The one exception is a lease on a residence that has no purchase option and ends within one year of filing.
- Debts incurred after registration, not counting car loans, stay under a set statutory dollar limit.
- Community property assets, and each partner's separate property, stay under a set statutory value limit.
- The partners have signed an agreement dividing their community property and debts, along with any transfer documents needed to carry it out.
- Both partners waive any right to support from the other.
- Both partners have read and understood a Secretary of State brochure on the process.
- Both partners want the partnership to end.
Under section 299(b), the termination takes effect six months after filing. During those six months, either partner may file a notice of revocation and mail a copy to the other. A completed termination is treated for all purposes as a judgment of dissolution. Section 299(c) lets a partner later ask a court to set it aside for fraud, duress, mistake or another recognized ground, or because the requirements were not met. The California Secretary of State's domestic partners registry has information about the registry and this process. The site also covers the closely parallel summary dissolution process for marriages.
Path 2: dissolution in superior court. Family Code section 299(d) gives the superior courts jurisdiction over dissolution, nullity and legal separation of domestic partnerships. These cases follow the same procedures as the dissolution of a marriage. The partners hold the same rights and duties that spouses do. For couples who do not meet every condition in section 299(a), this is the route that remains. Many couples will fall into this group, including any couple with a child of the relationship or a home they own. Procedural information is available through the California Courts self-help guide to divorce.
Couples who are also married to each other face a practical point here. The summary route under section 299(a) is a partnership filing only. When both relationships are ending, section 299(e) lets the court dissolve the partnership and the marriage in a single proceeding.
Why the Domestic Partnership Still Matters After You Married
An undissolved partnership carries real consequences, because the rights it created never stopped running. Under section 297.5, the duties of a registered domestic partner mirror those of a spouse. Those duties include community property and support. Nothing in the marriage switches them off.
The registration date is the first thing to look at. For a couple who registered in, say, 2006 and married in 2014, the questions about what was earned and acquired during the relationship may reach back to the earlier legal start date rather than the wedding. The longer the partnership ran before the marriage, the more that earlier period can matter when property is divided or support is considered. The site's guide to property acquired before marriage equality looks at those timeline questions in more detail.
Registration date does not change the scope of the rights, however. Partners who registered before 2005 hold the same rights and duties as those who registered later. Under AB 205, those rights apply from January 1, 2005, rather than from each couple's own registration date.
This is often the point where couples realize their legal history is longer than they thought. A divorce that addresses only the marriage can leave the partnership's status unresolved, which is the problem section 299(e) is designed to solve. When the case is framed to cover both relationships, the court can bring both to an end in the same proceeding. Questions about how a partnership and a later marriage fit together are also discussed in the site's piece on domestic partnerships in LGBT divorces.
When Partners Married Someone Other Than Their Domestic Partner
Sometimes the scenario is different. A person registered a domestic partnership with one partner, the relationship ended without any formal step, and years later that person married someone new. This is a separate situation from a couple holding both relationships with each other, and it is more pressing.
Family Code section 298.5(c) addresses it directly. A person who has filed a Declaration of Domestic Partnership "may not file a new Declaration of Domestic Partnership or enter a civil marriage with someone other than their registered domestic partner" unless the most recent partnership has been terminated or a final judgment of dissolution or nullity has been entered. The one stated exception is a partnership that ended because a partner died.
The earlier partnership does not end simply because one person moved on and married. It still has to be formally resolved under section 299, whether through summary termination or through the courts. Summary termination requires both former partners to sign and to meet every condition in section 299(a). When the former partner cannot be found or will not take part, court dissolution under section 299(d) is the route that remains. The result is two overlapping legal relationships, each with its own potential property and support consequences. That overlap needs formal resolution, and the specific effect on the later marriage turns on facts that go beyond this article.
What to Look for When the Situation Is More Complex
Certain facts tend to make ending a partnership more involved than a simple filing. The following are the ones that come up most often.
A partnership that spans the Proposition 8 years. Couples who registered, married or changed their status between November 2008 and June 26, 2013 may have questions about which relationship began when, and what legal status each one had at a given time.
A move out of California. Many couples registered here and later moved. Section 299(d) allows a dissolution, nullity or legal separation of a partnership registered in California to be filed in California's superior courts even if neither partner lives in the state any longer. That rule rests on the consent each partner gave in the Declaration of Domestic Partnership form. Whether the new home state recognizes the partnership is a separate question that depends on that state's law. Going the other direction, Family Code section 299.2 provides that a substantially equivalent legal union formed in another jurisdiction is recognized in California as a valid domestic partnership, whatever it is called.
Children. Under section 297.5(d), the rights and obligations of registered domestic partners toward a child of either of them are the same as those of spouses. Parentage questions are related to the dissolution of the partnership but separate from it. A non-biological parent's status, a child born through assisted reproduction, or a parentage judgment each deserves its own attention.
Agreements made along the way. Couples who signed a domestic partnership agreement or a premarital agreement may find that its terms speak to one relationship but not the other.
Two practice limits are worth stating plainly. LGBTDivorceLaw.com practises California family law only, and the firm does not take adoption matters. Adoption remains relevant as background, because it can bear on parentage, but questions about the adoption itself belong elsewhere.
If You'd Like to Talk Through Both Relationships
A partnership and a marriage to the same person can look like one relationship from the inside, but the law sees two. Sorting them out turns on a handful of facts. These include when the couple registered and when they married, what was acquired in between, whether children are involved, and where each partner lives now. A consultation is the place to walk through those dates and documents and to get a fact-specific read on whether summary termination, a combined proceeding under section 299(e), or a related parentage or custody question sits at the center of the situation. For readers whose question is about an adoption itself, a different first call will be more useful, since the firm does not take adoption matters.
To talk through how your partnership, your marriage or a related parentage question fits together, call LGBTDivorceLaw.com at (866) 343-4226 for a confidential consultation.