Estate planning for unmarried couples
Default rules follow marriage and bloodlines. A partner of twenty years appears in neither.
The short answer
An unmarried partner inherits nothing under US intestacy statutes and generally has no automatic authority to make medical decisions or access records. Five documents fix it: a will, both powers of attorney, current beneficiary designations, and where property is shared, a trust or a written ownership agreement.
Every default rule in American estate law runs on two things: marriage and blood. A committed partner of two decades is neither, which means everything has to be written down.
What happens by default
With no will, an intestacy statute distributes the estate to a spouse, children, parents and siblings in a fixed order. An unmarried partner does not appear on the list and receives nothing.
The home is the sharpest version of this. If it is in one name only, the surviving partner may have no ownership interest at all, whatever they contributed to the mortgage.
The hospital problem
Without a medical power of attorney, clinicians turn to next of kin under a state’s default order. A partner may not be consulted, and may not be given information.
This is the most urgent of the five documents and it takes fifteen minutes.
The five documents
A will naming your partner explicitly. A medical power of attorney with an advance directive. A financial power of attorney. Beneficiary designations updated on retirement accounts and insurance. And, where property is shared, either a trust or a written agreement recording who owns what.
Retirement accounts deserve particular attention: many employer plans default to a spouse and require an affirmative designation otherwise.
Property held together
How the deed reads matters more than what you both intended. Joint tenancy with right of survivorship passes automatically to the survivor; tenants in common does not, and that share passes under the deceased owner’s will or intestacy.
If you own a home together, check the deed wording this week. It is a five minute task with an outsized consequence.
If children are involved
A partner who is not a legal parent has no automatic standing regarding the children, whatever the relationship in practice. Guardianship nomination in a will is the mechanism for expressing your wishes, and formal adoption is the stronger route where it is available and appropriate.
This is a situation where the platform will suggest a professional rather than a form.
Questions people also ask
Does common law marriage solve this?
Only a small number of states still recognise new common law marriages, and the requirements are specific. It is not a plan, and relying on it usually means litigating it at the worst moment.
Can my partner make medical decisions for me?
Only if you appointed them in a medical power of attorney. Without it, clinicians follow the state’s default order of next of kin, which is unlikely to include an unmarried partner.
What about a domestic partnership registration?
Some states and cities offer registration that confers some rights, but the scope varies enormously. Documents are the reliable route.
Legacy Buddy provides document creation tools, not legal advice.
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