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Robert A. Ray
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We have 4 guests online| Read About the Inheritance Rights of Illegitimate Children. |
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As originally enacted, the Probate Code accorded paternal inheritance rights to an illegitimate child only if the parents had married after the child's birth. The statute was amended several times to allow inheritance rights to illegitimate children if the father took some voluntary action to acknowledge the child before he died. In declaring the statute unconstitutional, the Supreme Court said "(t)he legal status of illegitimacy is, like race or national origin, a characteristic beyond an individual's control, and it bears no relation to the individual's ability to participate in and contribute to society...thus, a statutory classification based on illegitimacy violates equal protection unless it is substantially related to an important governmental interest." Finding no substantial government interest in denying inheritance rights to illegitimate children, the Supreme Court declared the statute unconstitutional. The current Probate Code provides that illegitimate children inherit from their parents and other ancestors and descendants to the same extent as legitimate children. Problems arise when a child is never acknowledge as a child or is unknown as a child of their biological parents. This can happen when a mother gives birth without telling anyone and letting the child be adopted. It can also happen when a father denies that he is the father but no paternity suit is ever filed. What does the child do in those circumstances? Illegitimate children can petition the probate court to determine their rights of inheritance. They must petition the court within certain time limits Because a child inherits from his ancestors and descendants, an illegitimate child may find that his biological grandparents had a substantial estate and seek to inherit from them. He might also discover that he has siblings from whom he would inherit. The point to remember is that if you discover that you have a family that you did not know you had, you should contact an attorney quickly to secure your rights. |
Until 1991, illegitimate children did not inherit from their parents. In that year, the Texas Supreme Court, following an earlier ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court held that the statutes that deny inheritance rights to illegitimate children violated the Constitution's equal protection clause.