Do you know what same sex marriage in West Palm Beach has to do with inheritance law? Did you know that denying someone a marriage license could also change his or her rights to devise certain property in Florida? Check out this recent case out of the State of Pennsylvania where a couple’s common-law marriage was recognized retroactively after one spouse’s death.
Florida Same Sex Marriage
- Same sex marriage was recently legalized throughout the United States in a landmark Supreme Court case.
- Do you know how that affects same sex couples in West Palm Beach?
- Florida homestead laws limit the ability of a person with minor children to devise property and a non married couple cannot avoid this predicament by owning the house together in the way a married couple can.
- Courts all around the State including in West Palm Beach were aware of the problem that unrecognized unions posed.
- Inheritance is only one such area- but it is an important one.
- What remedies do you expect the courts to fasten in these strange situations?
- One court in Pennsylvania tried a novel approach in Bucks County (outside of Philadelphia Pennsylvania)
Judge Recognizes a 2001 Same Sex Union as Common Law Marriage Retroactively
- A common law marriage is a marriage without a ceremony that is recognized based on the longevity of co-habitation.
- Florida and many other states traditionally have been straying away from common law marriage.
- Do you know the Florida rules on common law marriage for West Palm Beach?
- A couple had been living together for the minimum period starting in 2001 and unfortunately one of them had passed away before the landmark ruling by the Supreme Court.
- This was really a fight over death benefits and taxes as the spouse battled other family members who claimed rights through relation.
- The decision appears to also apply to common law marriages entered into even before 2001; do you think this is the right solution?
- What can be done to ensure inheritance and death rights are properly accounted for in a world where a whole new view of family unions is arising?
- Is the right move for West Palm Beach?
- What do you think?