Estate Planning & Administration
Estate Planning for LGBTQ Couples and Families in Pennsylvania
Last updated July 2026
9 min read
✓ Verified Jul. 2026Marriage gives same-sex couples in Pennsylvania a strong legal default, but it does not do all the work. The most reliable protections are the ones you put in writing and keep in your own hands.
Same-sex marriage is legal and recognized. Obergefell v. Hodges remains the law of the land, the federal Respect for Marriage Act of 2022 requires recognition of valid marriages even if case law were to shift, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up a challenge in November 2025. None of that is in doubt today.
What is genuinely unsettled sits at the edges. Active disputes in other states question whether a married same-sex spouse is presumed to be a legal parent, including an appeal pending before the Oklahoma Supreme Court and an open question in Texas. That uncertainty is the calm, practical reason to build a belt-and-suspenders plan. Protections that rest on someone else recognizing your marriage are good. Protections written into a will, a power of attorney, and a signed directive are better, because they travel with you and do not depend on how a court in another state reads a presumption. Good planning closes the gap between what the law presumes and what you can prove with a document in your hand.
Marriage gives a surviving spouse meaningful rights, but it does not hand over the whole estate by itself. Pennsylvania intestate law is a common surprise here. If you die without a will and leave a spouse and a parent but no children, your spouse takes the first $30,000 plus one-half of the balance, and the rest goes to your parents under 20 Pa.C.S. § 2102. Many couples assume "we're married, so everything passes to my spouse automatically." It does not. A will is how you actually leave everything to your spouse.
Marriage also carries an elective share: a surviving spouse can claim one-third of the estate under 20 Pa.C.S. § 2203, waivable only by a valid prenuptial or postnuptial agreement. That protects a spouse who is left out, but it is a floor, not a full plan.
The bigger gap is everything that passes outside the will. Retirement accounts, life insurance, and payable-on-death accounts go to whoever is named on the beneficiary form, and jointly titled property passes by the title, regardless of what your will says and regardless of marriage. If an old form still names a parent or an ex, that is who collects. See our pages on beneficiary designations and wills in Pennsylvania for how these pieces work together.
If you and your partner are not married, Pennsylvania law treats you as legal strangers unless your documents say otherwise. Intestate succession under 20 Pa.C.S. § 2103 runs to children, then parents, then siblings and their children, then grandparents, then aunts and uncles. An unmarried partner is nowhere on that list. With no will, your partner inherits nothing, and your assets go to relatives you may not have spoken to in years.
Long cohabitation does not fix this. Pennsylvania abolished common-law marriage for relationships begun after January 1, 2005, under 23 Pa.C.S. § 1103, so years of living together do not create spousal rights. For unmarried partners, a will, beneficiary designations, and powers of attorney are not optional refinements; they are the entire legal relationship. We cover this in depth on our page for unmarried partners in Pennsylvania, and the family-law side is on unmarried couples' rights and obligations.
Whether you are married, engaged, or building a life without a marriage certificate, a few signed documents put you in control. We will map out exactly what you need.
Most couples need the same four things. Each does a distinct job.
If you cannot speak for yourself and have not named an agent, Pennsylvania falls back to a ranked list of surrogates under 20 Pa.C.S. § 5461(d). The order is spouse together with certain adult children, then an adult child, then a parent, then an adult sibling, then an adult grandchild, and only at the very bottom a close friend who knows your values. An unmarried partner is not in any priority class. A partner could reach only that final catch-all, and only if no spouse, child, parent, sibling, or grandchild is available to step in first.
For a married spouse the default works, but a pending divorce removes the spouse from the top spot, and the hospital still has to sort out the hierarchy in a hard moment. A signed health care power of attorney removes all of that doubt and names your person directly. We go through this in detail, with the document set built for same-sex couples, on our page for health care directives and powers of attorney for LGBTQ Pennsylvanians.
If you are raising children, securing each parent's legal tie to the child is its own piece of planning, and an important one given the live parentage disputes in other states. A confirmatory or second-parent adoption gives a non-biological parent a court order of parentage that every state must honor, which is far stronger than a marital presumption alone. Pennsylvania allows it through the "for cause shown" route in 23 Pa.C.S. § 2901, recognized by the Supreme Court in In re Adoption of R.B.F., 803 A.2d 1195 (Pa. 2002). We cover the process on our page for second-parent and confirmatory adoption in Pennsylvania, alongside the general adoption overview.
Every couple's plan looks a little different, and the right set of documents depends on whether you are married, your assets, and your family. Marc works with LGBTQ couples and families across Bucks County and Pennsylvania to build plans that hold up. You can start with our estate planning overview or reach out directly. Schedule a free consultation through our scheduling page or the contact form, and we will figure out exactly what you need.
Statutory content on this page was last verified against Pennsylvania statutes (20 Pa.C.S.; 72 P.S. Art. XXI): Jul. 2026. If you are reading this significantly after that date, confirm key provisions with current statute text or contact our office.
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