How to Leave Your House to Your Partner When You Are Not Married

What happens if you do nothing

Start with the stakes, because they are the whole reason this page exists. If you die owning the house in your sole name with no will, no deed arrangement and no trust, state intestacy law decides who gets it, and in nearly every state that means your closest blood relatives: children, parents, siblings, on down the family tree. An unmarried partner is not on the list. It does not matter how long you lived there together or who paid the bond with you. Your partner’s legal position is a tenant of your family’s new house. We cover the full default picture in what happens when an unmarried partner dies without a will.

The four options at a glance

Option 1: a will. Cheapest, weakest armor

A will is the baseline: you write that the house goes to your partner, and if it is valid, it works. Every couple should have wills regardless of what else they do, because a will catches everything the fancier tools miss. Two honest limits, though. First, a willed house goes through probate: a public court process that takes months and, in some states, costs real money. California’s statutory fee schedule alone runs about $23,000 in attorney fees on a $1 million gross estate, calculated before subtracting the mortgage. Second, probate is the built-in forum where a disinherited family can contest, and an unmarried partner inheriting a house is the classic contest scenario.

Cost to do it: $0 (FreeWill) to $199–$299 for the guided online tools. Our comparison of online will makers for unmarried couples ranks them with verified prices.

Option 2: the transfer-on-death deed. The underrated middle path

A TOD deed (also called a beneficiary deed) is a recorded deed that says: when I die, this property passes to the person named here. Until then, nothing changes. You keep full ownership, you can sell, refinance or revoke any time, your partner has no rights while you are alive, and at death the house passes outside probate. For a simple one-house estate, it does most of what a living trust does for a fraction of the cost: typically a form plus a recording fee, roughly $50 to $200 all-in if you do it yourself, $300 to $800 with an attorney.

Availability is the catch: more than 30 states plus Washington D.C. allow them, and the list keeps growing. Georgia added them in July 2024, New York in July 2024, and Delaware’s took effect in December 2025. Florida and Pennsylvania do not have TOD deeds (Florida has its own alternative, below). Check your state’s current statute before relying on this page or any other.

• Georgia quirk: the beneficiary must record an affidavit within 9 months of the death, or the property falls back into the estate.
• New York quirk: the deed needs two witnesses plus a notary, and it must be recorded before death to be valid.
• Everywhere: a TOD deed only controls that property. You still want a will for everything else.

Option 3: a revocable living trust. Privacy and control

You transfer the house into a trust you control, name your partner as the beneficiary at your death, and keep the right to change everything while you are alive. The trust skips probate, keeps the transfer out of the public court record, and doubles as incapacity planning, since a successor trustee can manage the property if you cannot. It earns its cost when the situation is bigger than one house and one beneficiary: multiple properties, a blended family, or real hostility between your partner and your relatives. Expect about $499–$599 through the online tools or roughly $1,500 to $4,000 from an attorney. Our will vs trust guide covers when the upgrade is worth it.

Option 4: adding your partner to the deed now. Read this before you do it

Adding your partner to the title as a joint tenant with right of survivorship means the house passes to them automatically at your death, no probate, no will needed. It is also the option people most often regret, so here is the full price tag. It is a completed gift of half your house: above the annual exclusion ($19,000 in 2026) you are supposed to file a gift-tax return, though with a $15 million lifetime exemption actual tax is rare. It is mostly irreversible: you cannot take them off the deed later without their signature. Their problems become the house’s problems: a judgment creditor, bankruptcy or tax lien against your partner can attach to the property. And it burns tax basis: the half you gave keeps your old cost basis instead of stepping up at death, which can mean a real capital-gains bill when the house is eventually sold.

What happens to the mortgage (the section every other guide skips)

Most homes carry a mortgage, and most mortgages have a due-on-sale clause: transfer the property and the lender may demand the full balance. A federal law, the Garn-St Germain Act, blocks lenders from enforcing that clause for a list of death-related transfers. Read the list closely, because it was written for married families: it protects a transfer to a surviving joint tenant, a transfer to a relative on the borrower’s death, and transfers to a spouse or children. An unmarried partner inheriting from a sole owner through a will or TOD deed is not clearly on the list, and the federal servicing rules that give heirs information and loss-mitigation rights use the same categories.

What this means in practice, stated honestly: the lien survives regardless, your partner is not personally liable on the note, and if the payments keep arriving lenders rarely accelerate a performing loan. But a partner-heir outside the protected categories is negotiating from a weaker legal position than a spouse would be. The practical playbook: keep payments current from day one, contact the servicer early about assumption or refinancing, and consider term life insurance sized to the mortgage balance, which converts this whole problem into a check. If protecting the mortgage position matters most, joint tenancy (with its costs, above) is the one path with the explicit federal shield.

State wrinkles worth knowing

• Florida, Texas, Michigan, Vermont, West Virginia: these five states offer the lady bird deed (enhanced life estate deed), which works much like a TOD deed: you keep full control for life, including the right to sell or revoke, and the property passes at death outside probate. It is Florida's answer to not having a TOD deed statute.
• California: under Proposition 19, a non-spouse who inherits generally triggers a property-tax reassessment to market value. In high-appreciation areas, the new tax bill can be the difference between your partner keeping and selling the house. Similar transfer-tax or reassessment rules exist elsewhere; check your state.
• Five inheritance-tax states (PA, NE, KY, NJ, MD): inheritance tax is paid by the heir, and the rate depends on the relationship, which taxes an unmarried partner as a stranger: 15% in Pennsylvania, 15% in Nebraska after the first $25,000, up to 16% in Kentucky, 15 to 16% in New Jersey, and 10% in Maryland. Two escape hatches: New Jersey fully exempts registered domestic partners and civil-union partners, and Maryland fully exempts domestic partners registered with the Register of Wills. Registration only helps if it happens before death.
• Community-property states: if either of you was previously married and the house has community-property history, get advice before relying on any DIY tool.

Contest-proofing: family has standing, so plan for it

The people your paperwork disinherits, usually parents and siblings, are exactly the people with legal standing to challenge it. A will contest happens inside probate, which is why the will-only plan is the most exposed. TOD deeds and joint tenancy transfer automatically outside probate, so there is no built-in forum: a challenger must file their own lawsuit alleging fraud, undue influence or incapacity, which is a higher hill. Harder is not impossible, so do not treat any of this as contest-proof.