How Long-Term Non-Marital Relationships Can Cause Problems if You Don’t Have an Estate Plan

Summary: Having an estate plan in place can provide you with many benefits. It allows you to indicate what your goals are, and remove any uncertainty about who should or should not take from your estate. To avoid the problems of unintended disinheritance, uncertainty and all-too-avoidable court litigation, take control by getting a complete plan in place and making sure that your plan is periodically reviewed and updated as needed. By getting a plan, you will have the peace of mind that comes from knowing that you have benefited your loved ones by taking control of your legacy and making clear exactly what your wishes are.

Your estate plan is your legacy. Your estate plan creates your legacy by indicating whom you wish you remember and acknowledge through the distribution of your wealth. When you have an estate plan that is complete and ideally tailored to meet your needs, you can rest easy knowing that you have taken control over your legacy and ensured that your assets will be distributed according to your intentions. When you don’t, and you have no plan, then the opposite is often true. When you have no plan, you have no control and the lack of planning often opens the door to uncertainty and uncertainty often means court battles.

As an example, look at the estate of Dennis, a man who lived in a small town in the middle of Pennsylvania. Dennis died in early 2016. His online obituary says that he was survived by his two sisters, a brother and his fiancée, Jeannette.

Jeannette, however, went to court and argued that she was much more than just a fiancée. She contended that she and Dennis had been, for several decades, “common law” spouses. Jeannette’s argument in court was that, because Dennis had never created an estate plan and died intestate, and because she was Dennis’s surviving spouse and he had no surviving children, she was entitled to the entirety of Dennis’s estate.

In court, Jeannette testified that she and Dennis began dating in 1974 and the couple moved in together in 1987. Shortly after that, according to Jeannette, the couple exchanged rings that were meant to symbolize that their relationship was “forever.”

Not all states acknowledge common-law marriage as legal, but Pennsylvania does. Pennsylvania, though, creates a fairly high legal hurdle for proving to a court that a relationship constitutes a valid common-law marriage. Ultimately, that hurdle worked against Jeannette in her case. On certain forms like medical records, Dennis listed his younger sister as his next of kin, gave Jeannette as his emergency contact but described her only as a “friend” and used as his official address an address that was not the home in which he and Jeannette alleged lived together. Additionally, Dennis and Jeannette did not file joint tax returns, they did not share joint bank accounts and Jeannette had never taken Dennis’s last name. All of these things amounted to evidence that the relationship was not a common-law marriage. This led the trial court and an appeals court to rule against Jeannette.

The outcome triggered by this case made a dramatic difference. If Jeannette would have won, she would have received 100% of Dennis’s assets as his surviving spouse. Because she lost, Dennis’s surviving heirs were his three siblings who split the contents of his estate. Jeannette had no legal relationship to Dennis and, as a result, got nothing.

There is no way to know what Dennis’s actual goals for his estate were, as he passed away with no plan to dictate what he wanted. While it is possible that he may not have wanted Jeannette to get everything, it is also distinctly possible that he did not want her to get nothing, either. However, that’s exactly what happened because he had no plan. Everyone has a need for a plan, but certain groups of people have even higher needs for plans. People involved in long-term committed relationships but whom are not married are definitely one of these groups. The law generally makes no accommodations for these relationships, meaning that your partner is, in the eyes of the law, a stranger and entitled to nothing from your estate.