The “Marriage Certificate” Estate Plan?
Feb 24, 2025
Marriage is what marriage is, but it isn’t an estate plan. Many adults just assume that because they are married that all of their estate planning wishes just magically happen because the government institution of marriage makes everything OK. This is just not true.
In North Carolina, the spouse automatically gets the first $60,000 of personal property, but after that, here’s the spousal inheritance a marriage gets your bride/groom when you pass on:
- If there are no children but parent(s) still living, then the parents get 50%;
- If there is one child, then the spouse gets 50% and the child gets 50%, and they inherit it at age 18;
- If there are two or more children, then the spouse gets a third and the children split two-thirds, again at age 18.
How about handling medical or financial decisions if you are incapacitated? Surely a spouse gets to handle things for you automatically in that circumstance, right? No. First, a bank is not going to let a spouse get into your individual bank account, incapacitated or not, without a power of attorney or guardianship papers from a court. A spouse is usually presumed to be first in line to handle these matters, but, without a power of attorney, there still needs to be court authorization. Also, your spouse being first in line is not an absolute certainty, and anyone can step forward to become a guardian for you. Then it is up to a court to decide.
What about health care? Surely a spouse is automatically in charge, right? Legally, it’s the same as with the financial decisions in that a spouse is presumed to be first but it can be contested through the same type of guardianship proceeding. In practice, most medical and health care facilities will simply take direction from the spouse until there is some kind of challenge and an order from a court empowering someone else.
In both health care and financial decisions, who is in charge if your spouse passes on or is also incapacitated in the same accident? Then it is your children. But if you have four children, are you sure they will all agree on everything? What if there is a disagreement? Are you willing to bet your life and health that children who often disagree with each other will magically pull it all together when a very emotional crisis hits?
And then there is a the mandatory court process around an estate when probate is not being bypassed through a solid revocable living trust. And now a government bureaucracy is going to oversee your assets for about a year or more before the inheritance actually gets to the people the law says inherit your estate.
When it comes to the people you want in charge and the inheritance of your estate when you are gone, do you really want to rely on the government to make these decisions for you and your family? That’s what you get when a marriage certificate is your only estate plan. To learn more about setting up your own estate where you make the decisions and not the government, check out the free materials at www.FreeTrustCourse.com, and look here for future online and in-person seminars.
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