Leon County domestic partner registry to start this week

Leon County domestic partner registry to start this week

Leon County officially opens its Domestic Partner Registry with a ribbon cutting at the Leon County Courthouse May 1.

The opening ceremony will be at 8 a.m. in the plaza leading up to the Clerk of Court’s Official Records Office, 313 Calhoun Street, across from the Leon County Courthouse. Guest speakers include Leon County Commissioners Nick Maddox and Mary Ann Lindley.

The registry will not be limited to Leon County residents. Any unmarried couple can sign up, though both partners must do so in person. Leon County’s registry will be open to couples who are 18 or older, are not married and not related by blood, who live together and consider each other as immediate family. Neither applicant can be in a domestic partnership or civil union with someone else.

Couples will complete a Domestic Partnership Registration Affidavit, provide a Florida driver license or ID card, sign the affidavit under oath and pay a $50 fee. Once it is recorded into the Clerk’s official record, the partners will receive a certificate of registration and laminated cards recognizing their domestic partnership.

While this registry is not marriage, the domestic partnership registry offers families the following protections including: the right to hospital visitors, the right to make healthcare decisions for a partner who is incapacitated, the right to be notified, as a family member, in an emergency affecting their partner, the right to oversee funeral and burial arrangements for each other and the right to take part in the education of a partner’s child.

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