Did you know that if you have an unmarried partner, stepchildren, a chosen family, a non-biological co-parent, or godchildren, none of them will inherit from you under Louisiana’s default intestate succession laws? Without a solid estate plan, it doesn’t matter how important they are to you or how long they’ve been a part of your life, they may still be left in the cold.
The legal term for dying without a Will is “intestate,” and if you die intestate, Louisiana’s intestate succession laws (La. Civ. Code arts. 880, et. seq.) will apply and decide who inherits your property. These default rules protect blood relatives, and in some cases your spouse, above anyone else, so important people in your life may be left out completely.
Does this mean you can’t protect them? No, it doesn’t. The good news is that you can protect them with an intentionally designed estate plan.
When you die intestate (without a Will), Louisiana law will distribute your property to your blood relatives, adopted children, and your surviving spouse in a certain order – with your biological or adopted children having priority. To make it even more complicated, community property and separate property are also treated differently, with a different line of priority for inheritance depending on whether the property is community or separate property.
The order of succession according to the Louisiana Civil Code is:
As you can see, the list of who inherits under Louisiana intestate succession laws is short, and it leaves out people who may be very important to you.
If you’d like to learn more about the order of inheritance under intestate succession, check out our article on What Happens If You Die Without A Will in Louisiana: Possibly Unintended Heirs and Family Conflict – Aspen Estate Planning, LLC.
Louisiana doesn’t recognize a common law marriage, so if you and your partner are not legally married, your unmarried partner has no right to inherit from you under Louisiana’s intestate succession laws. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve lived together. It doesn’t matter if you’ve raised children together. It doesn’t matter if you’ve bought a home together and built a life together. If you are not legally married, and you die without a Will or trust, Louisiana law gives your partner no right to inherit from you at all.
Instead, your children, parents, or siblings will inherit your property. If you’re a same-sex couple and your biological family isn’t supportive of you, this can be especially difficult. But proper planning can help.
How to protect your unmarried partner: Execute a Louisiana Will that leaves your partner some or all of your property. Or create a trust and name your partner a beneficiary. Just as important, but often overlooked, is to change your beneficiary designations on your life insurance, retirement accounts, and any payable-on-death accounts to name your partner. You may also want to consider joint ownership of bank accounts. If you want your partner to be able to make financial or healthcare decisions for you, execute durable and healthcare powers of attorney, and make your end-of-life wishes clear in an advance healthcare directive (living will).
Stepchildren are not included in the list of children who inherit from you by default. Only biological or adopted children inherit from you under intestate succession laws. You may love them like your own. You may have raised them since they were very young. None of this matters. Louisiana law does not recognize a legal relationship between you and your stepchildren when it comes to inheritance. Because stepchildren aren’t recognized descendants under the law, they also aren’t forced heirs, so you aren’t required to leave them anything when you pass away. But you can so long as you take certain steps to provide for them.
How to protect your stepchildren: Draft and execute a Will or trust that includes your stepchildren as heirs and/or beneficiaries, leaving them any property that you want. Blended families often use a trust to make sure that current spouses and children from prior relationships are all protected. Beneficiary designations can also be another way to protect stepchildren because property with designated beneficiaries (like life insurance, retirement accounts, and payable-on-death accounts) pass outside of Louisiana succession. If you want to make sure that your stepchildren are included in the order of inheritance even if you don’t have a valid Will or trust, you can also adopt them. Adopted children are included in the line of inheritance just like biological children.
Many people have a chosen family – lifelong best friends, mentors, the community who has supported you when you needed it. You may consider them your chosen family, but this doesn’t provide them inheritance rights under Louisiana law. This gap is often felt by the LGBTQ+ community because they often have many family members who they aren’t necessarily related to by blood. If you want to protect a chosen family, Louisiana’s default rules won’t do that.
How to protect your chosen family: Again, your Will is the first place to start. A Will is the foundation of any solid estate plan. If you have assets or property that you want to control when your chosen family receives it or how they receive it, a trust may be a good option to consider. If you have assets that allow beneficiary designations, changing the beneficiary on these accounts is an easy option for protecting your chosen family. If you want a chosen family member to make decisions for you if you’re incapacitated, you should also consider financial and healthcare powers of attorney as well as an advance healthcare directive (living will) to outline what end-of-life treatment you want.
Another issue that may arise is when you and your partner are raising children together, but you aren’t biologically related to the children you are raising together, and you haven’t adopted them. In this situation, Louisiana doesn’t recognize them as your children under intestate succession laws, so they won’t inherit from you. Just as important, if something were to happen to the children’s biological parent (presumably your partner), you may not have any right to continue to raise the children. These are real risks for same-sex couples and blended families because a non-biological co-parent doesn’t automatically have legal rights to non-biological children.
How to protect a family with a non-biological co-parent: Like the other people on this list, you can protect your non-biological children via your Will or trust and beneficiary designations. Another option to consider is adoption because adoption will not only ensure the children inherit from the non-biological parent, but it will also ensure the non-biological parent has a legal right to keep and raise the children. Regardless of whether you adopt your non-biological children, you and the biological parent can have a plan for guardianship of the children. The biological parent can use their estate plan to name you as the tutor for minor or incapacitated children, giving the legal right to continue to care for the children.
Your godchildren are not legally related to you. Despite the term, they don’t fall into the category of children who inherit from you under Louisiana intestate succession law, so they have no right to inherit from you if you die without a Will or trust.
How to protect godchildren: The same tool can protect godchildren – a valid Will or trust and beneficiary designations. Using these tools, you can decide who inherits from you, including your godchildren, and Louisiana’s default laws won’t apply.
Louisiana’s default inheritance laws protect biological relationships and legal relationships like adoption and marriage. If you don’t fit into one of these categories, you’re left out entirely, no matter what your day-to-day life is like. This isn’t a mistake. It’s how the law is designed to operate.
The only way to fix this gap is to intentionally plan.
The only thing that doesn’t protect the loved ones on this list is doing nothing. If you do nothing, Louisiana intestate succession laws will decide for you.
If you’d like more information about estate plan essentials, read our guide – An Estate Planning Checklist for Louisiana Families – Aspen Estate Planning, LLC.
If you don’t have an estate plan, you’re leaving it to Louisiana to decide who inherits from you. If you don’t want that to happen, you should consult with a Louisiana estate planning attorney.
From its founding, Aspen Estate Planning has dedicated its practice to helping protect the loved ones on this list. We work every day to help protect those people who would otherwise be left out in the cold under Louisiana’s default laws. If you see your loved ones on this list, contact us today to schedule a free initial consultation to find out how we can help you.
Will my partner inherit if I die without a will in Louisiana?
No. Under Louisiana law, only legally married spouses have any inheritance rights. If you aren’t legally married to your partner, your partner won’t inherit from you.
Do stepchildren inherit in Louisiana?
No. Biological and adopted children inherit from you, but stepchildren are neither. If you adopt your stepchildren, then they will inherit from you.
Can I leave my estate to a friend or chosen family in Louisiana?
Yes. If you execute a valid Will or trust, you can leave your property to whomever you choose. The only caveat to this is that if you have forced heirs, they will be entitled to a specific portion of your property. To learn more about forced heirs, read our article on Estate Planning in Civil Law Louisiana.
What is the difference between a will and a beneficiary designation?
A validly executed Will is a document that outlines who you want to receive your property when you pass away, and when you pass away, a Louisiana court will review your Will and ensure that its terms are followed through the legal process called succession. A beneficiary designation is a way for you to name who inherits specific types of accounts – life insurance, retirement account, or a payable-on-death account — when you pass away, and the proceeds in these accounts are transferred to your designated beneficiary without going through the court process of succession. Both are important, but you must coordinate them so that there isn’t a conflict between who is included in each.
How do I protect a child I'm raising who isn't legally mine?
A Will, trust, beneficiary designations, tutorship plans – these can all protect children who aren’t legally related to you. If you want to create a legal relationship where there isn’t currently one, you can consider adoption as well.
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