If You Placed a Child for Adoption, Can He or She Inherit From You?
Estate planning lawyers often say that you should never write a will when you are angry, but writing a will when you are angry is better than not writing one at all. Even if you wrote your will just to make sure that your cheating spouse or your ungrateful youngest daughter didn’t get a penny, you have some time to think more carefully about what you want your legacy to be by the time you print your will and sign it in the presence of two witnesses. You may find yourself thinking about how your relationships with family members have changed over the years and even wanting to use your estate to help people other than the family members with whom you have maintained the closest ties in recent years. If you placed a child for adoption when you were young, you might even decide to leave him or her an inheritance, even if you have had little or no contact with your biological son or daughter since another family adopted him or her. If you choose to do this, the way to do this is to mention your son or daughter by name in your will, or if you do not know your biological child’s current legal name, describe him or her in as much detail as possible, including the birthdate, birthplace, and information about the adoption. For help implementing your wishes about who does and does not inherit property from you, contact a Washington, D.C. estate planning lawyer.
Maryland Intestate Succession Laws Entitle Adoptees to Inherit From Their Adoptive Parents, but Not Their Birth Parents
When a Maryland resident dies without a will, the laws of intestate succession apply. If you have children and a surviving spouse, the surviving spouse gets $15,000, and then the probate court divides the remaining assets, with half going to the spouse and the other half being divided, with half going to the spouse and the other half divided equally among the decedent’s children. The children can be related to the decedent through birth or adoption; what matters is that the decedent was the children’s legal parent.
When a couple adopts a child, they become the child’s legal parents; the child’s biological parents no longer hold legal parent status. That means that, if the birth mother dies without a will, the child she placed for adoption does not inherit from her estate. If she wants to leave assets to children that she gave birth to and another family legally adopted, the only way she can do this is by indicating it in your will. You can leave property to anyone in your will, regardless of the family relationship or lack thereof between the testator of the will and the beneficiaries.
Contact Tobin O’Connor Ewing About Updating Your Will
A Washington, D.C. estate planning attorney can help you if you want the probate court to distribute your assets differently from what the laws of intestate succession dictate. Contact Tobin, O’Connor, and Ewing in Washington, D.C. or call 202-362-5900.
Source
smartasset.com/financial-advisor/maryland-inheritance-laws
