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Families that have children who are adopted, or stepchildren who haven\u2019t been legally adopted, may face unique estate planning challenges. Additional consideration must be taken when a family includes an unmarried couple in a long-term relationship and one person has biological or adopted children. If your family\u2019s makeup is as such, it\u2019s important to understand your estate planning options.<\/p>\n
Treated as equals<\/strong><\/p>\n Adopted children are placed on an equal footing with biological children in most situations for estate planning purposes. Thus, adopted and biological children are treated the same way under a state\u2019s intestate succession laws, which control who inherits property in the absence of a will.<\/p>\n In addition, adopted children generally are treated identically to biological children for purposes of wills or trusts that provide for gifts or distributions to a class of persons, such as \u201cchildren,\u201d \u201cgrandchildren\u201d or \u201clineal descendants\u201d \u2014 even if the child was adopted after the will or trust was executed.<\/p>\n No inheritance rights unless adopted<\/strong><\/p>\n Stepchildren generally don\u2019t have any inheritance rights with respect to their parents\u2019 new spouses unless the spouse legally adopts them. If you have stepchildren and want them to share in your estate, either adopt them or amend your estate plan to provide for them expressly.<\/p>\n Of course, estate planning isn\u2019t the only reason to adopt stepchildren. Adoption also gives you the legal rights of a parent during your life.<\/p>\n Before you adopt stepchildren, however, you and your spouse should consider the potential effect on their ability to inherit from (or through) their other biological parent and his or her relatives. In most states, when a child is adopted by a stepparent, the adoption decree severs the parent-child relationship with the other biological parent and his or her family. That means the child can\u2019t inherit from that biological parent\u2019s branch of the family \u2014 and vice versa \u2014 through intestate succession.<\/p>\n Second-parent adoption considerations<\/strong><\/p>\n A growing minority of states now permit second-parent adoptions, in which an unmarried person adopts his or her partner\u2019s biological or adopted children without terminating the partner\u2019s parental rights. However, in states that recognize second-parent adoptions, their intestate succession laws may not provide for a child to inherit from the \u201csecond parent.\u201d<\/p>\n Spell out your wishes<\/strong><\/p>\n If you have children who are adopted or stepchildren whom you haven\u2019t legally adopted, or you\u2019re unmarried but in a long-term relationship and your partner has biological or adopted children, clearly address your intentions in your will or living trust. Your estate planning advisor can help you understand your options.<\/p>\n \u00a9 2022<\/em><\/p>\n <\/body> Families that have children who are adopted, or stepchildren who haven\u2019t been legally adopted, may face unique estate planning challenges. Additional consideration must be taken when a family includes an unmarried couple in a long-term relationship and one person has biological or adopted children. If your family\u2019s makeup is as such, it\u2019s important to understand […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,9,10],"tags":[8,11,12],"class_list":["post-16012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-estates","category-news","tag-articles","tag-news","tag-updates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sfw.cpa\/news-and-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sfw.cpa\/news-and-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sfw.cpa\/news-and-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfw.cpa\/news-and-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfw.cpa\/news-and-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfw.cpa\/news-and-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16012\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sfw.cpa\/news-and-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfw.cpa\/news-and-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfw.cpa\/news-and-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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