You may share a home, expenses and a life together. Your estate plan should reflect the role you want your partner to have. In Virginia, an unmarried partner does not inherit under the intestacy rules simply because you live together. And inheritance, access to money, medical decisions and funeral arrangements are separate questions.
Start with five areas: your home, what each person should receive after a death, who can handle financial matters, who can make healthcare decisions, and who will arrange your funeral. For each one, compare what you want with what your current records actually say.
Your home: what happens to each person’s interest?
Find the current deed before deciding what to change. Having both names on a Virginia deed does not, by itself, establish that the survivor receives the other owner’s share. The form of ownership and the survivorship language matter.
If only one of you owns the home, discuss what you want the other person to be able to do after the owner’s death. Inherit the property? Stay there for a time? Receive money to make another arrangement? Those are different goals, and they call for a careful look at the available options.
If you own the home together, have the deed reviewed against your intentions. Also identify the mortgage, ongoing expenses and anyone else you want to benefit later. A plan for who receives a house should be considered alongside a plan for maintaining it.
Bring to the conversation: the deed, current mortgage information and a short description of the result each of you wants. Adding a name to a deed should follow that review, rather than be the starting assumption.
Your money: who should receive it?
Virginia’s inheritance rules when there is no will provide for a spouse and relatives in a set order. An unmarried partner is not included simply because of the relationship. That makes a deliberate plan especially useful when you want to leave property to your partner.
Those default rules do not decide the destination of every asset. A valid beneficiary designation, survivorship arrangement or trust may provide a separate route. Your will or trust and the records held by your bank, insurer or retirement-plan provider need to be considered together.
Ask each provider for the current beneficiary record, including any backup beneficiary. Compare it with your intentions for your partner, children and anyone else you want to include. Do not assume that changing a will updates the provider’s records.
Bring to the conversation: existing wills and trusts, a list of accounts and policies, and current beneficiary records. Our guide to dying without a will in Virginia explains the inheritance rules in more detail.
Your financial decisions: who can act for you?
Receiving an asset after your death and handling your financial affairs while you are alive are different roles. A financial power of attorney can authorize a trusted partner to act for you, within the document’s scope and applicable law.
Consider the practical work someone might need to do: speak with your bank, pay your bills or manage your property if you cannot handle those tasks. Review whether your documents address the authority needed, when it can be used and who can step in if your first choice cannot serve.
The person you choose for financial matters does not have to be the person you choose for healthcare. Select someone suited to each responsibility and talk with them about your wishes.
Bring to the conversation: each person’s financial power of attorney, the names of proposed agents and backups, and any questions about particular accounts or property.
Your healthcare decisions: who should speak for you?
You can appoint your partner as your healthcare agent in an advance medical directive. You can also record your treatment wishes so the person acting for you has guidance.
When no applicable directive or appointed agent governs a decision for someone who cannot make an informed healthcare decision, Virginia’s default decision-maker rules may put available, willing and capable relatives ahead of an unmarried partner.
There is an exception worth understanding: a qualifying adult who has shown special care and concern may sometimes serve. That route requires an eligibility determination and has limits, including an exclusion for decisions to withhold or withdraw a life-prolonging procedure. Being someone’s partner does not automatically establish authority through that exception.
Naming your chosen agent puts your own choice in writing. Discuss a backup, your wishes and where the document can be found. Our guide to financial powers of attorney and advance medical directives explains how the two types of authority fit together.
Your funeral and burial: make your partner’s role specific
If you want your partner to make your funeral arrangements and decisions about burial or cremation, make that an express part of your plan. An unmarried partner is not included in Virginia’s funeral-law definition of next of kin simply because of the relationship. Do not assume that naming your partner as your healthcare agent also gives them the priority you want for funeral arrangements.
Virginia allows you to designate the person responsible for your funeral and disposition of remains in a signed and notarized writing, which that person must accept in writing.
Your chosen person’s priority also depends on timely delivery of a copy of the signed and notarized writing. It must be provided to the funeral service establishment and the cemetery, if any, no later than 48 hours after the funeral service establishment receives your remains. That makes access to the document part of the plan.
Ask your lawyer to address this designation expressly. Discuss your wishes with your partner and make sure they know where to find a copy promptly. Bring any existing designation and written funeral preferences to the planning conversation.
Make a household planning list
For each of the five areas, write down:
- What you want. Name the person who should act or benefit, and describe the intended result.
- What is on file. Identify the deed, document or provider record, its location and any point you have not confirmed.
- What needs a decision. Note any mismatch, missing backup or question to resolve with your lawyer.
Each of you should answer for yourself. You may have different wishes, especially if either person has children, an earlier marriage or responsibilities to other family members. Bring those facts into the discussion. If your legal marital status is uncertain, raise that too; this article does not determine whether a marriage is legally valid.
This list is a way to prepare for planning. It does not change ownership, appoint an agent or make a beneficiary designation. Keep completed notes and financial records private.
Bring your plans into the same conversation
Prior Law helps Virginia clients compare their wishes with the documents, ownership arrangements and beneficiary records that need to work together. You do not need to decide on a particular trust or deed before starting that conversation.
If you want us to review an existing plan, that substantive review takes place in a paid initial design meeting. We meet with clients in their homes by appointment. Learn more about our estate-planning services, or start with a free initial phone call to discuss your needs.
Start with a free initial phone call
General information for Virginia readers. Your documents, ownership arrangements and circumstances require individual review.
