Estate Planning for Cohabiting Families
A cohabiting family is one in which the adults live together but are not married to one another.
Common-law marriage
Before we go any further, you should know about a particular thing in South Carolina known as common-law marriage. It is quite possible for an adult couple to be married in South Carolina without having gone through any type of marriage ceremony or having a marriage license.
Usually for a common-law marriage to exist, the couple must desire to be husband and wife, they must cohabit, and they must hold themselves out to others as being married.
Cohabiting families
For our purposes here, we will assume the couple is not married by common law or otherwise. The problem then is that the cohabiting adults do not have the legal rights and privileges which spouses have. For example, a spouse may receive assets from a decedent and no estate taxes will have to be paid upon that first death. This is not true for a cohabiting family. Other issues arise in terms of who is entitled to assets upon someone’s death if there is no Will, and who is authorized to make medical decisions, among many others. Another very important issue may be what rights does each person have with any children?
Estate Planning is needed
For cohabiting families it is essential that Estate Planning be done. The adults do not have adequate rights under the law, and this is the only way each of them will be able to receive any legal recognition if something happens to the other one.
There are also many other issues which need to be addressed on a case-by-case basis. We urge you to get proper legal representation if you are a cohabiting family.