In many families, spouses structure their estate plans in a specific manner to protect one another. One spouse may intentionally name the other as the main beneficiary of their most valuable assets. They may hold title to certain resources jointly to ensure that a surviving spouse can assume ownership of those assets when the other spouse passes.
The goal is to eliminate financial strain and reduce the likelihood of economic hardship after the death of one spouse. In cases where someone dies without a will, state law protects the surviving family members of the deceased party. Spouses are among those with a statutory right of inheritance during intestate probate proceedings.
Occasionally, people remain married despite having a challenging relationship. In such cases, one spouse may have intentionally omitted the other from their estate plan out of spite. Other times, they focus more on dependents and forget to leave an inheritance for their spouse due to an unintentional oversight. In cases where a spouse discovers that their deceased partner disinherited them, probate litigation may be necessary.
Spouses have protection under the law
In some cases, spouses may have already established arrangements for financial support that don’t involve an inheritance. Marital agreements, trusts and other complex legal plans often play a role in such situations. Barring mutual agreement beforehand, the elimination of one spouse’s inheritance rights by the other could justify probate litigation.
A spouse left without any financial support could ask the probate courts to provide them with their elective share of the estate and with the degree of support. A spouse’s elective share depends on what other family members survive the deceased spouse.
If they do not have children, then the surviving spouse has a right to receive one-third of the overall estate’s value following the fulfillment of all remaining financial obligations, including probate expenses. If there are no surviving descendants, then the surviving spouse’s elective share increases to one-half of the estate.
The surviving spouse also has a right to financial support in the form of a spousal award. This is an amount intended to support the surviving spouse for nine months. The base amount is $20,000, although the courts can increase the award by $10,000 for each dependent still living at home.
Reviewing the terms of an estate plan with a skilled legal team can help those disappointed by a will determine whether they have grounds to pursue probate litigation. Spouses can contest estate plans that do not acknowledge their right to inherit when their spouse dies.
