A lot of people choose not to get married. They co-habitate, they mix assets, they’ll buy a home, and some even have retirement plans. There are many legal protections for married couples, but some of those protections don’t extend to individuals who live together, such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid benefits. If an unmarried couple decides to live together, they ought to discuss how to protect each other, and consider how do you protect yourself if you choose to live with a partner. Elder law attorney Andrea Lee from Legacy Estate Planning joins Suzanne to talk about protections and estate planning for unmarried couples.
Andrea says, “We all like to think that our partners love us, and we’ll do what’s in our best interest, they’ll always put us first. But the reality is, even married couples can each have their own will. They can each retain their own counsel. So if you’re an unmarried couple and you’re residing together, even if you own a home together, there is the possibility that one partner could go retain an attorney, draft a will, create a trust that says, ‘Hey, when I die, my half of the house goes to my kids, or my half of the house goes to the Humane Society.’ And so it can be very tricky for unmarried couples or even married couples to plan.”
Andrea adds, “You might be an unmarried couple. You could live together for 40 years. And if one of you has a stroke — or is in an accident and ends up in the hospital, if you are not married — your long-term partner might not have any legal ability to visit you in the hospital, to talk to your doctors, to make decisions on your behalf. That might fall to your parents — or your sibling who you haven’t talked to in decades. So really, unmarried couples, it’s even more important for them to sit down and prepare a plan than it is for married couples, because they don’t have any of those protections that the law puts in place.”
“There are different rules in different states, and how each state interprets those relationships. and what rights are bestowed upon different individuals. There are some benefits where, if a surviving spouse gets remarried, they might lose some benefits. Some … people don’t want to give up money that they’re earning because of a death of their first spouse by getting remarried. I do military pensions. There are a lot of people who would love to get remarried, but they are concerned about potentially the loss of a military pension, or some other benefit that they might have received.”
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