Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Illinois

Re: long term same sex estates/wills

Owning your property in Joint Tenancy with anyone, regardless of marrital status, is generally sufficient to dispose of your property at the first death. Joint Tenancy can be attacked in a court proceeding under a theory of undue influence, but if the joint tenancy was formed when you both had full capacity, and there are other indications of your donative intent, such an attack by your family would fail.

The larger question is what do you want to happen to your joint property after you both die? Now, its just a lottery; the last person alive gets to leave it to his or her family, and cut out the first person's family entirely, if desired. One answer is to use living trusts, with income to your significant other, and remainder to your heirs.

Re: long term same sex estates/wills

well, owning everything in joint tenancy should be enough. However, if you had a will leaving everything to each other it would be one more expression of your intentions, even though the will would NOT distribute any of the property to the other person. That would be done by the way the property was owned. As I said it would just act as one more expression of your intention.