Sec. 1. 18-A MRSA §1-201, sub-§§(10-A) and (10-B) are enacted to read:

(10-A)__"Domestic partner" means an individual who has signed and filed in the office of the Secretary of State a notarized affidavit attesting to a domestic partnership.__For the purposes of sections 2-102, 3-203, 5-311 and 5-410, a domestic partner is deemed to be the equivalent of a surviving spouse or a spouse notwithstanding any other legal or familial relationship the domestic partner may have with the decedent, the incapacitated person or the protected person.

(10-B)__"Domestic partnership" means the legal relationship that is formed between 2 individuals under this subsection.__Two individuals may form a domestic partnership if they meet the following criteria:

(i)__Each individual is a mentally competent adult;

(ii)__The 2 individuals have been legally domiciled with each other for at least 12 months;

(iii)__Neither individual is legally married to, legally separated from or registered in a domestic partnership with, another individual;

(iv)__Each individual is the sole domestic partner of the other and expects to remain so; and

(v)__The 2 individuals are jointly responsible for each other's common welfare as evidenced by joint living arrangements, joint financial arrangements or joint ownership of real or personal property.

Sec. 2. 18-A MRSA §1-201, sub-§(17), as enacted by PL 1979, c. 540, §1, is amended to read:

(17) "Heirs" means those persons, including the surviving spouse or surviving domestic partner, who are entitled under the statutes of intestate succession to the property of a decedent.

Sec. 3. 18-A MRSA §1-201, sub-§(20), as amended by PL 1979, c. 690, §3, is further amended to read:

(20) "Interested person" includes heirs, devisees, children, spouses, domestic partners, creditors, beneficiaries and any others having a property right in or claim against a trust estate or the estate of a decedent, ward or protected