Onely.Org

Some Like It Single: The Unmarried Estate April 24, 2009

Welcome to the latest installment in our new series, Some Like It Single, where we profile (relatively) small, independent blogs dedicated to exploring what it means to be “single” in American culture and, we hope, around the world.

This week, we’re profiling a relatively new blog, The Unmarried Estate. We really like this blog because its author, Therese H. Lee, is an estate lawyer whose specialty is singles estate planning (if you’re single, live in DC, and have concerns about protecting your property then Therese is your woman: http://www.thereselee.com/). The Unmarried Estate provides an extremely valuable resource for the rest of us, as Therese posts about all things property/beneficiary/money-related that we singles need to know. Here’s  why she chose singles estate planning to be part of her firm’s focus:

I decided that I wanted estate planning to be part of my law practice because of a personal family situation. A grandparent passed away a few years ago and because of poor estate planning, there are members of my extended family who are not speaking to each other and her estate still has not been settled after nearly 5 years. Then I started to realize how these situations can be exacerbated if a relative led an “alternative lifestyle” (e.g. lived with an unmarried lover, gay or straight, was a single parent, or wanted to leave all their money to charity because they had no children, which can cause problems if you have other family living at your death who might feel “entitled” to inherit from you since you don’t have kids, etc.)

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