Sharing a life doesn’t automatically give your partner the inheritance rights marriage provides. You may own a home together, share expenses, and make long-term commitments, yet those arrangements alone don’t ensure your partner receives your property after your death. Texas estate planning for unmarried couples requires deliberate decisions supported by appropriate legal documents.
An estate planning attorney can help you coordinate those decisions. At The M Firm, Attorney Marla Mundheim helps clients in Colleyville and throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex plan their estates to reflect their relationships, financial circumstances, and future intentions.
Understanding Your Partner’s Legal Position
When someone dies without a valid will, Texas intestacy law determines who inherits their probate estate. An unmarried partner does not receive a share simply because the couple lived together or maintained a committed relationship. Instead, property may pass to children, parents, siblings, or other relatives, depending on the circumstances.
Texas recognizes informal marriage, commonly called common-law marriage, but cohabitation alone does not establish it. A legally recognized informal marriage can create spousal inheritance rights. Couples should clarify their status rather than assume that the duration of their relationship provides equivalent protection.
For couples who are not legally married, planning helps replace uncertainty with instructions that reflect their wishes.
Creating a Will That Includes Your Partner
A valid will lets you direct how property in your probate estate passes to your partner, rather than leaving its distribution to Texas inheritance rules. This matters because an unmarried significant other is not included among the people entitled to inherit through intestacy.
Consider how much support you want your partner to receive and how that decision relates to other responsibilities. You may want to provide for your partner while preserving an inheritance for children from a previous relationship. Clearly expressed instructions help distinguish those commitments.
However, a will does not control every asset. Beneficiary designations and certain ownership arrangements can transfer property outside probate, making coordination essential.
Documents for Financial and Medical Decisions
Estate planning also addresses what happens if illness or injury prevents you from managing your affairs. Financial authority and healthcare authority serve different purposes, and Texas uses separate documents to address those responsibilities.
Discuss these documents with your estate planning attorney:
- Durable power of attorney: Authorizes an agent to handle specified financial and property matters and can remain effective during incapacity. It does not grant authority to make healthcare decisions.
- Medical power of attorney: Names someone to make medical decisions when you cannot.
- Directive to physicians: Records instructions concerning certain medical treatments rather than simply appointing a decision-maker.
- HIPAA authorization: Addresses permission to release protected medical information to designated individuals.
These documents should work together. The planning discussion should distinguish who may receive information, who may make decisions, and what instructions you want followed.
Choosing an agent also requires considering whether that person understands your priorities and can handle the responsibility.
Coordinating Beneficiaries and Shared Property
Life insurance, retirement benefits, and certain bank accounts may pass directly to named beneficiaries instead of through a will. Property held under an effective survivorship arrangement or in a living trust may also transfer outside probate.
As a result, leaving your estate to your partner in a will does not necessarily change the beneficiary listed on an insurance policy or retirement account. Reviewing those arrangements helps identify inconsistencies between your documents and your intentions.
A coordinated review should include:
- Life insurance policies and their primary and contingent beneficiaries.
- Retirement accounts and the beneficiary requirements applicable to each plan.
- Bank accounts with payable-on-death designations or survivorship agreements.
- Real estate deeds and any effective right-of-survivorship arrangements.
- Trust documents and whether the intended assets have been transferred into the trust.
Joint ownership deserves particular attention. Couples should not assume that placing both names on property automatically transfers the deceased owner’s interest to the survivor. The ownership arrangement and applicable survivorship agreement matter.
Addressing Your Partner’s Housing Needs
A shared home may be your partner’s most immediate concern after your death. Your plan should address who will receive your ownership interest and whether the arrangement allows your partner to remain in the property.
Leaving your interest outright to your partner differs from preserving it for your children while allowing continued occupancy. Those goals require careful discussion, not a general instruction that everyone should be treated fairly.
Reviewing the deed alongside your estate planning documents establishes a starting point. An effective survivorship arrangement can transfer an ownership interest outside probate, while other structures may require a different approach.
Considering Whether a Trust Is Appropriate
A living trust may be useful when you want more detailed instructions concerning property intended to support your partner and other beneficiaries. Assets properly held in a living trust can pass under its terms without probate.
A trust is not automatically necessary for every unmarried couple. Its usefulness depends on your assets, family circumstances, and distribution goals. Implementation also matters: signing a trust document does not automatically transfer all your property into it.
The goal is to choose an arrangement that fits your circumstances, not to add documents without a clear purpose.
Reviewing Your Plan as Circumstances Change
A change in your relationship, a property purchase, or a significant financial development can make earlier instructions inconsistent with your current intentions. Periodic review should encompass both estate planning documents and the assets they address.
Because beneficiary designations and other nonprobate arrangements operate separately from a will, revising one document may leave other instructions unchanged. Reviewing the full plan helps keep everything consistent.
Your designated decision-makers should also know where relevant documents are stored and how to access them when needed.
Protecting Your Partner With The M Firm
Unmarried couples benefit from addressing inheritance, shared property, and decision-making authority before a crisis arises. A coordinated estate plan can reflect your commitment to your partner while respecting obligations to children and other loved ones.
The M Firm serves clients in Colleyville and across the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. Attorney Marla Mundheim helps clients consider estate planning and trust arrangements tailored to their circumstances.
Contact The M Firm to schedule a consultation about your estate planning goals.