Estate Planning Is Love, Especially For Unmarried Couples

For decades, journalists and podcasters have been talking about the various love languages, ever since a popular book identified five of them. Some people show that they care through affectionate words and others show their love through cuddles and the like. By this logic, there is a love language called “acts of service,” and it sounds like the most boring love language. It involves showing your love by fixing the dripping faucet, decluttering the closet, and other mundane tasks that would be annoying if you left them to the other person to do by himself or herself. Perhaps you and your partner have been together for years. You are sure that your partner truly loves you, because both of you have always remained true to your goal of staying together without getting married; your relationship is based on love, not on legal formalities. This is fine while both of you are alive, but counting on love to speak for itself will not work in probate court when one of you dies. By failing to make an estate plan, you will leave your unmarried domestic partner in the lurch. If you are ready to get started on building an estate plan that will spare your unmarried domestic partner the heartbreak of a probate battle with your blood relatives, contact an Orlando estate planning lawyer.

What Happens to Your Unmarried Domestic Partner If You Do Not Make an Estate Plan?

The laws of intestate succession are not so bad if you are married. Your spouse inherits your whole estate, unless you have children from a previous marriage, in which case your surviving spouse inherits part of your estate, and your children from your previous marriage inherit the other part. If you are not married, your closest blood relatives inherit your estate, be they your children, siblings, or nieces and nephews.

In other words, if you leave it to the probate court to follow Florida’s inheritance laws, your unmarried partner will get nothing. Therefore, if you want your partner to inherit property from you, you must write a will and list your partner as a beneficiary. For eligible jointly owned assets, you can assign rights of survivorship to your partner for your share of ownership. The only thing that can go wrong with listing your partner as a beneficiary of your will is that your relatives can challenge the will. Even if they do not prevail, a challenge to the will is still costly and stressful. To avoid this problem, you should establish a trust with your partner as a beneficiary, because trusts do not go through probate. Another solution is to include an in terrorem clause in your will to discourage the beneficiaries from challenging it.

Contact Gierach and Gierach About Protecting Your Domestic Partner in Your Estate Plan

An estate planning lawyer can help you if you intend to leave property to your unmarried domestic partner.  Contact Gierach and Gierach, P.A. in Orlando, Florida to discuss your case.

Source:

leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=0700-0799/0732/Sections/0732.517.html