What happens if my partner dies without a will and we are not married?

State intestacy law decides, and no state's intestacy statute recognizes an unmarried partner. Assets pass to blood relatives — parents, siblings, then more distant kin — regardless of how long you lived together or who paid for what. A will is the only way to change that outcome.

Which documents matter most, and in what order?

Healthcare power of attorney and an advance directive first, because a medical crisis can arrive tomorrow. Then a durable financial power of attorney, then a will, then beneficiary designations reviewed across every account, then a revocable trust if you own real estate or live in a probate-heavy state.

Do beneficiary designations override a will?

Yes, every time. Retirement accounts, life insurance, HSAs, and transfer-on-death registrations pass by contract and ignore whatever the will says. Most estate planning failures we see are not missing wills — they are a stale beneficiary form naming a parent or an ex.

Can we be treated as married through common law?

Only in a small number of states, and the requirements are stricter and less predictable than most people assume. Relying on common-law status as an estate plan means litigating your relationship at the worst possible moment. Documents are cheaper and certain.

Does a hospital have to let me visit or make decisions for my partner?

Federal rules require Medicare- and Medicaid-participating hospitals to honor a patient's chosen visitors, but decision-making authority still follows the legal documents. A healthcare power of attorney naming your partner, carried digitally and on file with your providers, is what resolves the question at 2 a.m.

Estate Planning for Unmarried Partners

Protecting Your Partner and Your Future

Living together, sharing a mortgage, and raising kids together creates none of the legal rights that marriage creates automatically. In most states, an unmarried partner is a legal stranger — with no inheritance right, no default medical decision-making authority, and no standing if a biological family member objects.

Estate planning is how unmarried partners manufacture the protections the law does not hand them. For LGBTQ+ households in particular, it is also the part of the plan most likely to be tested by someone who does not respect the relationship.

The five documents that do the work

Will. Directs where your assets go. Without one, intestacy statutes route everything to blood relatives — parents, siblings, sometimes nieces and nephews — before an unmarried partner sees a dollar.
Revocable living trust. Keeps the transfer private, avoids probate, and — critically — is far harder for a hostile relative to contest than a will. If you own a home together, this is usually the centerpiece.
Durable financial power of attorney. Lets your partner pay the mortgage, access accounts, and manage your affairs if you cannot.
Healthcare power of attorney and advance directive. Names your partner as the medical decision-maker and records your treatment wishes. Pair it with a HIPAA authorization so they can actually receive information.
Beneficiary designations. Retirement accounts, life insurance, and transfer-on-death registrations pass by contract and override your will entirely. An unreviewed 401(k) beneficiary form naming an ex or a parent is the single most common failure we find.

The tax problem nobody mentions

Unmarried partners do not get the unlimited marital deduction or portability of the federal estate tax exemption. Everything you leave each other is a taxable transfer above the exemption, and gifts during life above the annual exclusion eat into it.

For 2026 the federal exemption is very high — $15 million per person — so most households will not owe federal estate tax. State estate tax is the real exposure: Washington, Oregon, Massachusetts, Illinois, New York, and DC all impose estate tax at thresholds far below the federal one, and Oregon's begins at $1 million. Two long-partnered professionals with a house, retirement accounts, and life insurance can cross a $1–4 million state threshold without feeling wealthy at all.

Practical protections beyond the documents

Title the house deliberately. Joint tenancy with right of survivorship passes the home outside probate but creates gift-tax and basis consequences; tenancy in common does neither and leaves your partner exposed. Choose on purpose.
Document contributions. If one partner paid the down payment and the other pays more of the mortgage, a written cohabitation or property agreement prevents a painful dispute later.
Name a guardian. If you are raising children and only one of you is a legal parent, a parentage judgment or second-parent adoption matters more than any other document in this list.
Write a letter of intent. Not legally binding, but it gives your executor context and makes challenges harder to sustain.
Choose a fiduciary who will actually show up. Naming a supportive friend or a corporate trustee over a family member who disapproves of your relationship is a legitimate planning decision.

Review triggers

Refresh the whole set when you buy property, change jobs (new 401(k), new group life), move states, add a child, end a relationship, or every three years by default. Estate documents fail quietly — the failure is only discovered at the worst possible moment.

Where a planner fits

An attorney drafts these documents; we make sure they match the money. That means auditing every beneficiary designation, sizing life insurance to what your partner would actually need, coordinating trust funding, and modeling state estate exposure before it becomes a problem. Read our fuller LGBTQ+ estate planning overview, or book an intro call to review what you already have.