Editor’s note: This post was originally published in 2013 and has been rewritten with current Washington State vesting guidance for couples buying a home before marriage.

More couples are buying a home together before marriage — sometimes years before, sometimes with no wedding planned at all. Whatever your timeline, if you’re not legally married when you close, Washington law treats your ownership very differently than it would a married couple’s. The deed itself is what determines what happens to the home if one of you passes away, or if you split up. This is worth thinking through before you’re sitting at the closing table, not during it. [Read more…]