If your partner died without a will and you were not legally married, state law does not treat you as an heir. Intestacy statutes pass everything to a spouse, then children, then parents, then siblings. An unmarried partner of thirty years is not on that list in almost any state.

What you can claim comes down to paperwork your partner filled out while alive: beneficiary designations, joint titles, transfer-on-death deeds, and trusts. Those instruments do not ask about marital status. They pay the person whose name is on them. This post covers what is already yours, what belongs to the estate and their relatives, and the handful of states where a long relationship can still be recognized as a marriage after a death.

Why state law skips you

Intestacy is the default plan a legislature wrote for people who never wrote their own. It runs on legal relationships, not on closeness. Marriage certificates and birth certificates are the inputs. Length of relationship, a shared mortgage, and a shared bed are not. So the order goes surviving spouse, then children, then parents, then siblings, then more distant blood relatives. If your partner had an estranged brother two states away and no children, that brother inherits and you do not.

The rights reserved for spouses are the ones people are most surprised to lose. A surviving spouse can usually claim an elective share against a will, a homestead right in the family home, a family allowance during probate, Social Security survivor benefits, and first priority to serve as administrator. None of that extends to a partner.

What you can claim

Everything below works because your name is already on a document. Find these first. They do not wait for probate and they do not need a relative's permission.

Life insurance. A policy pays the named beneficiary, and if that is you, the family has no claim on the money. Employer group life works the same way. Filing the claim takes a certified death certificate and the carrier's form.

Retirement accounts. A 401(k), 403(b), or IRA goes to the named beneficiary. The spousal consent rules that complicate things for married couples do not apply to you, which cuts both ways: nothing required your partner to name you, and nothing stopped them.

Payable-on-death and transfer-on-death accounts. A bank account with a POD designation or a brokerage account registered TOD passes to you outside probate, usually on a death certificate and your ID. This is also where designations nobody remembered to update cause the ugliest surprises.

Joint property with survivorship. A joint bank account, or a house held as joint tenants with right of survivorship, becomes fully yours at the moment of death. Read the deed and the signature card closely. Tenants in common is a different animal: your partner's share drops into the estate and you end up owning the house with their heirs.

A transfer-on-death deed. Most states now allow a recorded deed naming a beneficiary for real property, effective at death. If your partner recorded one naming you, the house is yours, though changing the title still means filing with the county recorder.

A living trust. If the home or the accounts sat in a revocable trust naming you, the trustee distributes under the trust and the intestacy statute never enters the picture.

Your own property. Anything titled in your name was never estate property, even if you both used it daily. The hard part is proving it, so pull receipts, registrations, and the lease before anyone starts clearing out the house.

What belongs to the estate

Assume anything titled only in your partner's name with no beneficiary attached is estate property, controlled by an administrator who is probably a relative. That covers the car, the furniture, the checking account you both spent from if you were only an authorized signer, and the house if the deed named only them.

Do not move money out of those accounts. Paying the mortgage or the power bill from an account that is not legally yours feels like keeping the lights on, and to an administrator or a judge it can look like taking estate assets. Pay household costs from your own account and keep every receipt, because that turns into a claim you can file. Pets are property in all 50 states, which catches people off guard; in practice the animal stays with whoever is caring for it, but a relative can assert a claim.

Benefits that require a marriage

• Social Security survivor benefits. These require a marriage the SSA recognizes, meaning a licensed marriage or a common-law marriage valid where your partner lived. Our guide to Social Security after a death covers the rest of the program, including the $255 death payment.
• Pension survivor annuities. Most defined-benefit plans pay a survivor annuity to a spouse. Some let a member name a non-spouse; many do not. Ask the plan administrator which election is on file.
• Veterans and military survivor benefits. Spouses and dependent children only.
• COBRA health coverage. Federal COBRA extends to a spouse and dependent children. If you were covered as a domestic partner, continuation is up to the employer's goodwill. Ask HR in writing this week, because that coverage often ends the month of death.
• Wrongful death claims. If someone else caused the death, most state statutes hand the claim to a spouse, children, or parents. A minority allow a financially dependent partner to sue.

One tax rule can break your way. A non-spouse who inherits an IRA generally has to empty it within ten years, but a beneficiary who is not more than ten years younger than the person who died counts as an eligible designated beneficiary and can stretch withdrawals across their own life expectancy instead. Partners close in age often qualify. Confirm your status with the custodian before you take a distribution, because the first move is the hard one to undo.

Who decides the funeral

Most states set a statutory priority list for controlling the disposition of remains, and it usually reads spouse, adult children, parents, siblings, then next of kin. An unmarried partner is frequently nowhere on it.

Two things change that. Most states let a person appoint an agent for disposition of remains in a signed document, sometimes inside an advance health care directive and sometimes on a standalone form. If your partner signed one naming you, it generally controls over the family. And if you are paying, funeral homes will often work with you as the responsible party so long as no higher-priority relative objects. If one does object and no appointment exists, the funeral home follows the statute. That is a terrible thing to learn in the first week.

The states where a long relationship can still be a marriage

Common-law marriage has nothing to do with how many years you lived together. Where it exists it takes three things: a mutual agreement that you were married, living together, and holding yourselves out publicly as married. Courts look for shared surnames, calling each other husband or wife, joint tax returns, and forms where one of you listed the other as a spouse.

New common-law marriages can still be formed in Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Texas, Utah, and the District of Columbia. New Hampshire is its own case: it recognizes one only after a partner has died, and only for inheritance. Utah requires a court order, with a filing deadline. Other states abolished common-law marriage but still honor unions formed before their cutoff, including Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and Idaho. Those cutoff dates differ by decades, so the year your relationship began matters.

If you believe you were common-law married, raise it early, because establishing it makes you a surviving spouse for inheritance and changes the entire shape of the estate. It also gets litigated, so talk to a probate attorney in the state where your partner lived. Registered partnerships are a separate path: California, Nevada, Oregon, and New Jersey are among the states recognizing domestic partnerships or civil unions with inheritance rights close to a spouse's. A city or county registry usually carries none, so check whether your partner registered with the state.

What to do this month

1. Order certified death certificates. Ten is not too many. Every insurer, bank, and county recorder wants its own original. Here is how to order them.
2. Build the list before you claim anything. Write down every account, policy, and piece of property, and next to each one note how it is titled and who the beneficiary is. That single page tells you what is yours.
3. Claim what names you. Life insurance, retirement accounts, POD and TOD accounts. These are the fastest and the least contested.
4. Protect the estate from fraud. Report the death to the credit bureaus and watch the mail, because a fresh death record is a target for new credit applications.
5. Preserve your own claims. If you loaned your partner money, paid their mortgage, or paid the funeral bill, you are a creditor of the estate, and funeral expenses usually get priority. Keep the invoices and file a claim in the probate case.
6. Find out who is opening the estate. Someone will petition, or nobody will. In several states you can ask to be appointed administrator if the heirs consent or no one with higher priority steps forward.

How Sunset helps

Sunset does the estate's paperwork for you, and it is free for families.

We search thousands of banks, brokerages, retirement plans, and insurance carriers, plus unclaimed property in all 50 states, which is how you learn what your partner owned and how each account is titled. We prepare the probate documents for your county, filled in and ready to sign, and we open an FDIC-insured estate account when the estate needs somewhere for money to land. When a claim has to go to an institution, we send it and follow up until the account is closed and the funds move. If the situation needs counsel, we can point you to a local probate attorney.

More than 10,000 families have used Sunset. Banks pay us, which is why families never do.

FAQ

Does an unmarried partner inherit anything if there is no will?

Not through the intestacy statute, in almost every state. The estate passes to a legal spouse, then children, then parents, then siblings, and a partner is not in that line. You can still receive life insurance, retirement accounts, and POD or TOD accounts that name you, and you take full ownership of anything held jointly with right of survivorship. The exceptions are a valid common-law marriage or a state-registered domestic partnership.

Can I get Social Security survivor benefits if we were not married?

No, unless the SSA recognizes your relationship as a marriage, meaning a licensed marriage or a common-law marriage valid where your partner lived. Living together for years and sharing bills do not qualify on their own. If minor children of the deceased are in your care, the children may qualify even though you do not.

Who has the right to decide the funeral if we were not married?

Whoever sits highest on your state's disposition priority list, which usually starts with a spouse, then adult children and parents. A partner rarely appears on it. The exception is a signed appointment of an agent for disposition of remains, which most states honor and which overrides the family.

Can I stay in the house we lived in together?

That depends on the title and the lease. If you were joint tenants with survivorship rights, or your partner recorded a transfer-on-death deed naming you, the home is yours. If the deed named only your partner, the house is estate property and the administrator can eventually ask you to leave, though usually not without a court process. If only your partner signed the lease, talk to the landlord early about adding you, and check local law, because some cities give succession rights to a long-term household member.

Am I responsible for my partner's debts?

Generally no. Debt belongs to the estate, and creditors are paid from estate assets before anything is distributed. You are on the hook only for accounts you co-signed or held jointly and anything you personally guaranteed. If a collector says you inherited a balance because you lived together, that is not how it works.

The paperwork decides, not the relationship

The cruelest part of this is how little the law asks about the relationship itself. It asks whose name is on the deed, the signature card, and the beneficiary form. That is the whole test.

So start with the documents. Find out what names you, claim it, and get a clear picture of what your partner owned before anyone else starts making decisions about it.

Start with Sunset and we will handle the paperwork side. Free for families, in all 50 states.