The loss of a parent is a life-altering experience for a child. Regardless of their age, they lose out on one of their closest relationships and a crucial source of support. Children are often among the main beneficiaries of a parent’s estate.
Especially when parents have achieved economic success during their lives, they may leave behind significant resources for their loved ones to inherit. Unfortunately, the idea of inheriting from a parent’s estate could lead to disputes among the children in a family. A parent may leave more property for one of their children than the others or might disinherit one child.
Does every child in a family have a right to equal inheritance under Illinois state law?
Children don’t always have inheritance rights
The law in Illinois does not necessarily protect the right of inheritance for all children. Factors including whether or not the parent left behind a will influence what the children may receive from the estate.
If parents die without estate planning documents, then intestate succession laws apply. In such scenarios, the legal children of the parents theoretically each have a right to an equal share of the estate. The surviving spouse of their parent also has a right to a portion of the estate.
In such situations, stepchildren and foster children that the parent never adopted likely do not inherit anything. Similarly, children born out of wedlock may not be able to inherit if they never established parentage before the parent died.
If the deceased parent left an estate plan, then the children do not necessarily have an automatic right of inheritance. Instead, the instructions provided by the parent dictate who inherits what from the estate. In most cases, parents do try to leave reasonable inheritances for their children to prevent them from fighting.
However, some parents establish wills and then fail to update them when their circumstances change. They may have had a late-in-life baby, for example, who they never added to their will as a beneficiary. In such cases, a child excluded from an estate plan might be able to take legal action by contesting the will. They could establish that it was inaccurate because of how outdated it was and that their omission was likely an accident rather than an intentional choice.
In scenarios where one child receives far more or far less than other child beneficiaries, the beneficiaries disappointed by their inheritance do not necessarily have a right to contest the will. Will contests or legal challenges against estate plans generally require valid grounds such as allegations of undue influence or a lack of testamentary capacity.
Discussing the terms of an estate plan and the reason for concern about its contents with a skilled attorney can help people explore whether they may have grounds to initiate probate litigation. Children who do not receive an inheritance can sometimes take legal action to correct an oversight on the part of a parent.
