Sonoma County CA Separates Elderly Gay Couple & Sells All Their Possessions

[iamkeri1]

"Tenants in common" is not a good choice to protect a couples rights. A home, car or other property owned as tenants in common gives each partner rights to only half of said property. Children or even distant relatives of the deceased or incapacitated partner could force the property into probate. The remainng partner would most likely be forced to sell the property and give half to the suing family member. Any jointly owned property should be titled as "Joint tenants", with the added phrase "with full rights to survivor", which adds further clarity to the intention of the owners.

"Tenants in common" should only be used if either partner has children or other relatives that they wish to have to leave their assets to rather than their partner.

This article makes me so sad, But I add my plea that you not use it as an excuse to avoid obtaining necessary documents to protect your rights. No system is perfect. This is an awful situation, but it could have happened just as easily to a cohabiting elderly straight couple. In Florida, during the last election, when the charming voters of my state decided to eliminate the legal status of "domestic partner", the biggest group lobbying to keep it from being passed was an elder rights group which used only straight couples as spokespeople. The religious right was so anxious to eliminate any possibility that gay folks could establish a legal relationship of any kind, that they through cohabiting straight people under the truck as well.
Sad Smooches,
Keri

Originally Posted by June

I read the articles this morning and wondered what "The rest of the story" was.

If someone has medical power of attorney and presents it, it must be honored, regardless of the relationship. I mean, you could have anyone have your power of attorneys, even if they're not blood/legal family.

Why was the other partner put into a nursing home? Why were the belongings sold? Was the other partner suffering from dementia or otherwise infirm at the time? Was the paperwork submitted at the time, or discovered later after all this stuff had happened, which doesn't excuse it, but might explain it better.

There are a lot of holes in this story that need to be filled in as far as timelines before I am satisfied that this was an actual deliberate act of homophobia and not just some kind of paperwork snafu with disastrous results.

I don't like being used by either side of the media, and frankly, this feels a bit skewed to me.

It did however remind me of the 1st If Walls Could Talk (someone else go find the video, I'm too lazy) where the female couple had been together for 30 years and when one of them died, the other lost everything even though she had paid the mortgage too. I remember crying hard and long as I watched that.

AND ALSO! Don't use this story as a reason NOT to get protected in your partnership in anyway you can because you think "it doesn't matter". It does.

Tenants in common if you own a house
Legal AND Medical POA's
Wills
Right of Remains
Living Wills - Who gets to pull the plug

There's some other stuff, someone else can fill in. It seems like I have about 7 different documents with my partner outlining what will happen and who's in charge.