NY DP Penalty

Is it a slap in the face, salt in the wound, proportionate fees, or a bureaucratic oversight?

Likely the latter as claimed, but still it seems an amusing but niggling thing: in New York City, one pays $35 to get a marriage license, but to register a domestic partnership costs $36. Fewer rights for only a dollar more! On the other hand, DP registration has no mandatory waiting period, which might be worth the extra $1.

We're told that parity will be established soon,* but apparently it's not known whether the marriage fee will be increased, the DP fee reduced, or some other solution will be found.
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* Jennifer S. Lee, "For Marriage or Partnership, Fee Will Soon Be the Same", New York Times, 16 October 2007.

Posted on October 16, 2007 at 17.24 by jns · Permalink
In: All, Faaabulosity, Raised Eyebrows Dept.

One Response

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  1. Written by S.W. Anderson
    on Tuesday, 16 October 2007 at 22.19
    Permalink

    IMHO, $35 is ridiculously high for either item. That's especially so because, thanks to computerization, acquiring, circulating and filing the information can be done very quickly and cheaply, as can printing out the document. That price seems even more exorbitant when you realize that if you need to go back for a copy later on, you'll be charged a fee for that as well.

    Someone in charge of these things ought to know that dollar difference invites bad PR.

    BTW, quite awhile back, a humorist said a big reason so many marriages end in divorce is that the system is too back loaded. Marriage licenses are cheap and easy to get by the people involved, whereas divorces cost a fortune, require a lawyer and a trip to court, with several fees included.

    The guy said if marriage licenses cost a fortune and people wanting to marry had to convince a judge they were in love and suitable partners for each other, there would be a few fewer marriages and far fewer divorces.

    Sort of made sense, in a wacky way.

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