Protecting Your Unmarried Domestic Partner From the Vicissitudes of Probate

Your estate plan can be a way of showing your family how much you love them, or it can be a way of showing them that you are over them and all their drama. There is a reason that estate planning lawyers tell people never to write a will when you are angry. If you revise your will, disinheriting a family member who treated you inconsiderately, the worst thing that can happen is that you never make a new version to abrogate the hissy fit will, leaving the family member unfairly disinherited even after you have reconciled. Of course, family is what you make of it. When you write a will, you can leave an inheritance to anyone you choose. By this logic, your estate plan is also the place to show your friends and the causes close to your heart how much you care about them, instead of or in addition to your family. If one of the closest people in your life is your romantic partner to whom you are not legally married, it is important to build your estate plan in a way that provides generously for your partner, because the unmarried partner of a decedent without an estate plan is even worse off than the spouse or blood relative of a decedent without an estate plan. For help creating an estate plan that serves the interests of your unmarried domestic partner, contact a Dade City estate planning lawyer.

Love Means Nothing to the Probate Court

If you do nothing, if you do not make an estate plan, then the medical establishment will make its own decisions about which of your family members to ask for consent to administer or withhold medical treatment. They might consult your estranged daughter instead of your domestic partner with whom you have lived for the past 20 years. When you die, the probate court will follow the laws of intestate succession to distribute your property. If you have children, they will inherit your estate, and if you do not, then your siblings will inherit it. Your partner will get nothing.

You might comfort yourself with the fact that your blood relatives consider your partner part of the family, but their behavior now does not guarantee that they will continue to treat your partner like family after you are gone. The only way you can be sure that your partner inherits what you want him or her to inherit is to make your partner a beneficiary of your will. If you are worried that your relatives who never liked your partner will challenge your will, leading to a costly probate battle and a reduced inheritance for your partner, you can also establish a trust with your partner as a beneficiary.

Contact a Florida Estate Planning Attorney About Counting Your Found Family Into Your Estate Plan

An estate planning attorney can help you provide for your unmarried domestic partner in your estate plan.  Contact The Law Office of Laurie R. Chane in Dade City, Florida to discuss your case.

Source:

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