Since the 2015 Supreme Court ruling on Obergefell v. Hodges, LGBTQ+ couples have been able to marry across the country and enjoy the same legal protections and guarantees as any married couple.
While this landmark ruling has undeniably made it easier for LGBTQ+ couples to care for their families, LGBTQ+ couples still face some unique challenges when it comes to estate planning in Ohio.
Lewis Legal stands with LGBTQ+ people and is here to help you overcome the legal hurdles still facing the community. Make sure you have a qualified estate planning attorney for LGBTQ+ people on your side to deal with these issues.
Why Estate Planning for LGBTQ+ Couples is So Important
Just because you can marry doesn’t necessarily mean you will or want to. How you express your relationship is your choice, but remember that marriage provides certain legal advantages to couples that unmarried couples won’t have.
This is especially true for LGBTQ+ couples, who face additional legal challenges regarding family and children. Working with an estate planning attorney is essential to ensure your assets are being handled appropriately, especially if you want to ensure they’re being passed to your partner and children without a lengthy and difficult probate process.
Naming your beneficiaries in a will or living trust allows you to control who inherits your assets, who acts as a guardian for your children, and who is the executor ensuring your wishes are followed. An estate planning attorney for LGBTQ+ people in Ohio can help you with this because without one, you risk assets being run through the state’s intestate succession process.
And in cases where you have no spouse or children, Ohio’s intestate succession process states that your assets are all transferred to your surviving parents or siblings. That means if you are not married to your partner, your passing could leave them with no rights to your assets no matter how long you’ve been together.
These issues get much easier with married LGBTQ+ couples thanks to the 2015 ruling, as assets are distributed to spouses and children regardless of the gender of the couple. But working with an estate planning attorney for LGBTQ+ people can still help in cases where you want to more specifically dictate how your assets are distributed.
Power of Attorney and LGBTQ+ Families
A will can help you dictate how your assets will be distributed after you pass, but what about before that? An estate planning attorney for LGBTQ+ people in Columbus can help you establish power of attorney for your financial and medical decisions should you become incapacitated.
Durable financial power of attorney is a document that designates who is to handle your financial affairs if you become ill or incapacitated, whereas medical power of attorney establishes the same power for medical decisions.
These are both important tools for any family, but are especially important for LGBTQ+ couples where legal protections may not automatically apply to you and your loved ones unless you make it explicitly clear with legal documentation.
Check Your Named Beneficiaries
It is also important that you check your named beneficiaries on insurance and retirement accounts. Even with an Ohio estate planning attorney in Columbus helping you set up a will and power of attorney, insurance, and retirement accounts are, themselves, binding legal documents that supersede wills and trusts.
That means even if you have a binding will that states that your assets are all to go to your spouse or children, it won’t matter if you never changed the beneficiary on your insurance or retirement accounts from, for example, an ex-partner or family member. Those assets will go to your named beneficiary regardless of what your will says.
Details like this are easy to overlook, so when you work with an estate planning attorney for LGBTQ+ people at Lewis Legal, we make sure your plan is comprehensive and that you’ll be able to care for those who mean the most to you.
Lewis Legal is proud to represent all people of any background or orientation. We treat you with respect and have a personal understanding of the unique challenges you face. If you’re looking for an estate planning attorney in Columbus or an attorney for other legal services, then please contact Lewis Legal today.