Not Married, and It Matters
Eleven years together, a hospital corridor, and a list that does not name you
Eleven years in the same house, the same name on the post, everyone calls you a couple. Somebody asks whether you are married.
Two things a person in this spot might do. Picking one shows what the law says about it.
Whether a particular relationship formed a valid common law marriage under another state's elements, cohabitation agreements, jointly held property, beneficiary designations, anatomical gifts and prepaid funeral contracts are not walked here. Nothing on this page says whether a particular document was validly executed or who holds a right in a particular family.
A practice walkthrough, not a prediction of how any real one will go. Legal information, not legal advice.
Words this turns on
7 words · tap one for its definition
Terms with a legal meaning that is narrower than the everyday one. Each links to the definition and the authority behind it.
- Attorney in factThe person a power of attorney names to act for somebody else. Under a durable power of attorney for health care, that is who decides about treatment when the principal cannot.
- Personal representative of the estateThe executor or administrator of a deceased person's estate. A wrongful death action is brought in this person's name, for the benefit of the surviving spouse, children, parents and other next of kin, rather than by any of them in their own right.
- DissolutionOne of the two ways Ohio ends a marriage. Both spouses file a petition together with a separation agreement, and not less than thirty nor more than ninety days later both appear and acknowledge under oath that they entered it voluntarily.
- IntestateDying without a valid will, so an estate is divided by the statute instead of by the person's own instructions.
- Right of dispositionThe right to direct what happens to a person's body after death. An adult of sound mind may assign it in a written declaration, and where there is none it passes down a statutory order beginning with a representative the deceased person appointed and then the surviving spouse.
- SolemnizedA marriage performed by a person the marriage chapter authorizes to do it. Since the tenth of October 1991 a marriage may occur in Ohio only if it is solemnized that way and otherwise complies with that chapter.
- Personal representativeIn the medical records section, a person authorized to act for the patient, who may make the written request to examine or copy the record alongside the patient and an authorized person.