Common Law
Q.A woman from Pennsylvania, age sixty five, born in Poland and a U.S. citizen for over thirty five years, has no one and has a problem I want to help her with. She had a relationship with a man whom she lived with off and on during this relationship. He owned the house next door where he stayed when he wasn't living with her and the house where they lived together. This man has recently died and before his death he admitted he was wrong not to marry her. After his death, his nephew has asked her to move and believes everything belongs to him. This man was sick over ten years and she was there to help in his care; the nephew could care less. This woman not only lost the man she loved as a husband for thirty five years but is also losing the home she has become attached. I person- ally believe the house she lives in belongs to her since it was her money that saved the house from foreclosure. My question is: "Does she have the right under Common Law, to claim the property or contest the Will, for property shared while she was together with this man?" and "Does the Court still Honor this Common Law?" Can anyone offer advice on any recourse she may have?
A.Pennsylvania has common-law marriage, but Pa. courts have been openly hostile to common-law marriage in recent years: see Staudenmayer v. Staudenmayer and PNC Bank v. Worker's Compensation Appeal Board (Stamos). There would have to be pretty strong evidence that these persons held themselves out to be married -- at a bare minimum, some "verba in praesenti": language that spoke to their then-current intent to live as husband and wife; the testimony of some witnesses to the effect that they held themselves out to be husband and wife would also help. If they simply lived together from time to time, but didn't present themselves as married, and didn't exchange words that spoke to regarding themselves as married, I think a Pennsylvania court would have a hard time finding that a common-law marriage existed. If she put a lot of her own money into the house, she may still have a claim at equity for that much; but cases like that are inherently one-of-a-kind and couldn't be pursued effectively without a skilled lawyer. If her case is as sympathetic as it sounds, it couldn't hurt to run it by a lawyer anyway.
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