Common Law Partner Death Rights

Common-Law Marriage Isn't What Most People Think

Many couples assume that living together long enough automatically creates a common-law marriage with full spousal rights. In most places, that's not true. Only a handful of US states still recognize common-law marriage, and even those require more than cohabitation — typically mutual agreement to be married, cohabitation, and public representation as a married couple.

As of 2026, common-law marriage is recognized only in a small minority of US jurisdictions, and those jurisdictions require more than cohabitation. Several other states recognize common-law marriages established before a specific cutoff date. If your state doesn't recognize common-law marriage, no amount of time living together creates spousal rights.

If You Qualify as Common-Law Married

A recognized common-law marriage carries the same legal weight as a ceremonial one. When your common-law spouse dies, you have the same rights as any other surviving spouse:

• Intestate inheritance — you receive the spousal share of the estate
• Social Security survivor benefits — available through SSA (you'll need to prove the marriage)
• Pension survivor benefits — if the deceased's plan pays survivor benefits to spouses
• Property rights — including any homestead protections
• Tax benefits — including the unlimited marital deduction

The catch is proving the marriage existed. Without a marriage certificate, you'll need evidence: joint bank accounts, shared insurance policies, tax returns filed as married, affidavits from people who knew you as a married couple, and any documents where you used your partner's last name or referred to them as your spouse.

Registered Domestic Partnerships and Civil Unions

Several states offer domestic partnership or civil union registrations that carry some or all spousal rights at the state level. California, Oregon, Nevada, Washington, and others maintain domestic partnership registries. These registrations can provide state-level inheritance rights, hospital visitation authority, and some survivor benefits.

The critical limitation: federal benefits don't follow. Social Security survivor benefits, VA survivor benefits, and federal tax treatment require a legal marriage (or recognized common-law marriage), not a state domestic partnership.

If your partner had a private pension, you may be eligible for survivor benefits through a registered domestic partnership. The UK's Local Government Pension Scheme, for example, pays survivor pensions to cohabiting partners who can demonstrate two years of continuous cohabitation, financial interdependence, and freedom to marry — even without formal registration.

If You Don't Qualify Under Any Framework

Most cohabiting couples fall into this category: not in a common-law marriage state, not formally registered. In this case, your partner's death triggers the full set of intestacy defaults that treat you as a legal stranger.

Your main route to direct an inheritance is through proactive estate planning — wills, trusts, beneficiary designations — done while both partners are alive. After death, your options narrow to:

• Equitable claims in jurisdictions that recognize them (Washington's committed intimate relationship doctrine, for example)
• Dependency claims under specific statutes (the UK's Inheritance Act 1975 for partners who cohabited at least two years)
• Contractual claims if you had a written cohabitation agreement

These are court processes, not automatic rights. They take months, cost money, and require evidence.

The Question That Matters

The relevant question isn't whether you're common-law married — it's whether you have legal protections in place regardless of your marital status. Wills, trusts, beneficiary designations, healthcare proxies, and property title structures protect unmarried partners more reliably than common-law marriage claims, which are contested more often than they succeed.

The When Your Partner Dies (Unmarried) toolkit covers exactly which protections to put in place and what to do when a partner dies without them.