Submitted by Marjory on Fri, 2010-01-08 11:07

Filed under:

• Social Change in Oregon
• Wills
• Workshops

This summer my partner Ben and I are having a commitment ceremony. We’ve invited our families and our college friends, but we’re not inviting the State of Oregon by getting "legally" married.  That means we won't have a marriage ceritificate that tells the bank, our doctors and the folks who manage our retirement funds that we’re a family.

But like any family, we want to make sure that if something happens to one of us, the person we depend on most in this world will be the one making decisions about our health care and finances.

Ben and I have been good friends for almost 20 years. When I bought my house in 1997, Ben offered to lend me money to help with the down payment. Seven years later we fell in love, and he moved in. I want to know that if I die unexpectedly, the house we share will belong to him, and that my next of kin -- my parents -- won’t have to go through the hassle of receiving the house and transferring ownership to Ben.

In the world of estate planning we don’t own a lot. But if something happened to both of us, the assets we do have -- a house and our retirement accounts -- could fund a grant cycle at MRG. So we want to give the folks who would be sorting through our possessions clear instructions about where we want the property to go.

That’s why we’re going to Michael Levelle’s estate planning workshop on Saturday, February 6. We want to find out how to prepare our wills, and what other documents we need to complete so that our legal and financial house is in order.

I’ve met Michael Lavelle, and he knows his stuff. When we sat down to talk about this workshop last fall, he said he was committed to helping people figure out what questions to ask and what legal documents they need to put in place to suit their own unique situations. He’s also putting together materials to help people understand how the plans they already have may be impacted by changes in the estate laws.

MRG has hosted estate planning workshops with skilled trainers for years. I’ve joined some of them, and have always known that I should put together a will. Making a life commitment to Ben is the event that’s going to motivate me to get it done.

What about you? Do you have all the documents you need in place, and do they reflect any recent changes in your life?

If the answer is no -- or if you don’t even have enough information to know how to answer the question -- I invite you to join me on February 6. You can sign up online right here on our website.

I hope to see you there.