A woman who worked in my building died of Covid-19 this week. She was 52 and, as far as I knew, was healthy. It was a total shock to learn of this.
I had met with her about a month ago for an hour. She was a real firecracker; full of life.
From our meeting I thought she was married and had three children. It turns out that she wasn’t married and had no children.
If she didn’t have a will, the man she considered her partner and his children will get no part of her estate. You see, the State of Nebraska has a plan for your estate even if you don’t have a will or revocable living trust. And that plan doesn’t include giving property to a domestic partner.
A woman I worked with in Lincoln married her long-time partner right before Christmas about six years ago. I asked her why she got married and her answer was that she had recently handled her father’s estate and saw that being married made it easier to deal with. My co-worker’s new husband died unexpectedly about a year later and I attended that funeral. Her kids attended.
It is a personal choice whether to marry. Regardless of that decision, it is always a smart and prudent idea to have an estate plan that YOU want and not the one the State of Nebraska has written for you. You have free will. Exercise it.
