Estate Planning for Unmarried Partners in Pennsylvania

If you and your partner are not married, Pennsylvania law does not treat you as a couple. Under the state intestacy statute, an unmarried partner inherits nothing and holds no default authority over your money or your medical care. This is true no matter how long you have been together, even decades. The fix is straightforward, but it does not happen on its own. You have to put the documents in place.

This is the estate-planning side of unmarried partnership. For the broader family-law picture (property you buy together, support, and what happens at a breakup), see our page on unmarried couples' rights and obligations in Pennsylvania.

Long Together, Still Legal Strangers

Many couples assume that years of living together, shared bank accounts, and a joint life add up to something the law recognizes. In Pennsylvania, they do not. The state abolished common-law marriage for any relationship formed after January 1, 2005. See 23 Pa.C.S. § 1103. If you started your relationship after that date, no amount of cohabitation makes you spouses.

That matters because the entire default inheritance system in Pennsylvania is built around marriage and blood. A partner who is neither a spouse nor a relative sits outside it. The law does not ask whether you loved each other or shared a home for thirty years. It asks one question: were you married. If the answer is no, the default rules treat your partner as a stranger.

The Intestacy Gap: Your Partner Is Not on the List

When someone dies without a will in Pennsylvania, the estate passes by intestate succession. The order is fixed by statute at 20 Pa.C.S. § 2103, and it runs like this: first to the decedent's children and their descendants, then to parents, then to brothers and sisters and their children, then to grandparents, then to aunts and uncles and their children. Read the whole section and you will not find a partner anywhere in it. An unmarried partner inherits nothing under intestacy. Not a reduced share. Nothing.

Compare that to a spouse. A surviving spouse takes a large share off the top, and people often assume that means a spouse always gets everything. Even that is not quite right. Where a person dies with no children but a surviving parent, the spouse takes the first $30,000 plus one-half of the balance, and the rest goes to the parents. See 20 Pa.C.S. § 2102. The point is that the law builds in a specific share for a spouse and zero for a partner.

So picture the common case. One partner dies without a will. The home, the accounts, the personal belongings all pass under § 2103 to that partner's children, or parents, or siblings. The surviving partner, who may have shared the home for decades, has no legal claim to any of it. The family the law recognizes is not the family you built. To see how harsh this gets across many situations, our page on what happens without a will in Pennsylvania walks through the mechanics.

The Fix: A Will Built Around Your Partner

A will closes the gap. You can leave your entire estate to your partner, or any share you choose, and you can name your partner as executor to run the estate. A valid Pennsylvania will overrides the intestacy default completely. This is the single most important document for an unmarried couple, because without it the statute decides, and the statute does not know your partner exists. For the formal requirements, see our page on last wills and testaments in Pennsylvania.

A will alone is not the whole plan, though. Much of what you own may never pass through the will at all.

Titling and Beneficiary Designations: The Assets a Will Never Touches

Some of your most valuable assets do not pass under your will. Life insurance, retirement accounts, payable-on-death bank accounts, and jointly titled property pass to whoever is named on the account or the deed, by contract or by operation of law. These beneficiary designations override your will. If an old form still names a parent or an ex, that is who collects, regardless of what your will says.

For an unmarried couple, this is good news, because these transfers do not hinge on marital status. You can name your partner on a life insurance policy or a retirement account today, and that money goes to your partner without ever touching probate. Joint titling with right of survivorship on a home or a bank account works the same way. The key is to coordinate everything so the will and the designations point in the same direction. Our page on beneficiary designations explains why these forms quietly control so much of an estate.

Powers of Attorney and Health Care: Authority While You Are Alive

Inheritance is only half the problem. The other half happens while you are still living but cannot act for yourself. If you have a stroke or an accident, who pays your bills, who talks to your bank, who decides your care. For an unmarried partner, the default answer is: not you.

Pennsylvania's health care representative statute, 20 Pa.C.S. § 5461, lists who may make medical decisions when there is no agent named. The order runs spouse, then adult children, then a parent, then a sibling, then an adult grandchild, and only at the very bottom a close friend or other adult who knows the person's wishes. A partner is not a priority class. A partner could only ever reach that lowest catch-all, and only if no spouse, child, parent, sibling, or grandchild is available to step in first. In practice, your partner can be shut out of the hospital room while a distant relative decides.

Two documents fix this. A health care power of attorney names your partner to make medical decisions and gives them access to your records. A financial power of attorney lets your partner manage money, property, and bills if you cannot. Both are essential for an unmarried couple, because neither role transfers to a partner by default. We cover the medical side in depth on our page about health care directives and powers of attorney for LGBTQ Pennsylvanians, and the general mechanics on our powers of attorney page.

A Note on Pennsylvania Inheritance Tax

Pennsylvania taxes inheritances based on the relationship between the person who died and the person who receives. A surviving spouse pays nothing. An unmarried, unrelated beneficiary, which is how the state classifies a partner, falls into the highest tax class. So even a well-drafted plan that successfully routes everything to your partner carries a tax cost a married couple would not face.

This is not a reason to skip planning. It is a reason to plan with the tax in mind. Lifetime gifting, certain forms of joint ownership, and how you structure beneficiary designations can all reduce the bite. We work the numbers as part of the plan so the tax does not catch your partner off guard.

Practical Recommendations

If you are an unmarried couple in Pennsylvania, here is what a working plan looks like:

• A will that names your partner as a beneficiary and as executor, replacing the intestacy default that leaves your partner out.
• Updated beneficiary designations on life insurance, retirement accounts, and bank accounts, naming your partner and removing stale names.
• Coordinated titling on your home and key accounts, so survivorship rights carry property to your partner outside probate.
• A health care power of attorney naming your partner, so a relative cannot override your partner at the hospital.
• A financial power of attorney naming your partner, so bills and property can be managed if you are incapacitated.
• A periodic review, because a move, a new account, or a new asset can quietly reopen the gap.

This same framework anchors our broader guide to LGBTQ estate planning in Pennsylvania, which ties together the will, the directives, and parentage protections in one place. If children are part of your family, our page on second-parent and confirmatory adoption explains how to secure both parents' legal status.

You built a life together. Pennsylvania law will not recognize it for you, but the right documents will. Marc works with unmarried couples across Bucks County to put a will, coordinated designations, and powers of attorney in place so your partner is protected, both when you are gone and if you cannot speak for yourself. Schedule a free consultation or send us a message to get started.

Statutory content on this page was last verified against Pennsylvania statutes (20 Pa.C.S.; 72 P.S. Art. XXI): Jun. 2026. If you are reading this significantly after that date, confirm key provisions with current statute text or contact our office.