You’re surprised when you find out that you’ve been disinherited. Your parents have passed away, and the estate administrator reads the will. You’re not mentioned anywhere, and the assets are given to other heirs and beneficiaries. The administrator tells you that you’ve been disinherited and you’re not going to get anything.
Technically, you did know that being disinherited was an option. But you’re not sure if this is what it should look like. Maybe you expected your parents to use a trust or a disinheritance clause, or maybe you just thought they would talk to you about it in advance.
What you start wondering is if you were disinherited by accident. Is this possible?
Estate planning mistakes do happen
This is something that may be worth considering, as estate planning mistakes happen from time to time, and they may not be rectified. One example is if parents make an estate plan when they only have one young child, but then they have another child and they neglect to update the plan. You may not have been named in the will, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that your parents didn’t want to leave you anything. They could’ve just forgotten to include it.
There are also other potential options, such as undue influence being used on your parents by the other heirs. The evidence of this could be if you were included in a previous version of the will, for instance, but then you were mysteriously removed and no explanation was given.
What can you do?
If you find yourself in this position, it may start an estate dispute, and it’s very important that you understand all of the legal options at your disposal.
