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Hello, this is trusted. Um, the podcast where we talk about trusting others. I am Blake Johnson, your host. And today we are going to be talking about a touchy subject in its disinheriting a child now, uh, in all 50 states. Well 49 of the states. Um, you can disinherit your kids at any age. There’s no restrictions on that cause you have the right to leave your money to whoever you want, whether that’s through a will or a trust or a any other estate planning tool that’s, that can be done. Now, the one exception to that is Louisiana and Louisiana. Um, every time you’re in law school, they always say, hey, um, you know, this works in every state except for Louisiana. And the reason that is, is they are based off of the Napoleonic code. Uh, it’s also referred to as civil law and outside of the u s and Great Britain, the rest of the world follows the civil code.Trust Attorney Las Vegas
And all that means is that, um, you know, they base their decision making more off of what the law says than what court precedence is. Whereas here in the U S and in Great Britain, we take value on the court system and what precedents the court and judges have used in interpreting that law. So that’s the main difference there. And so I bring that up to say, Louisiana, you cannot disinherit your kids if they’re 25 or under, uh, or if you have a special needs child, then you can never disinherit them. And that’s good public policy cause we don’t want, Trust Attorney Las Vegas, you know, if you have assets to take care of your child, you should do that. We don’t want the, the government and the general populous to have to take care of that child because you failed to do your estate planning or your trust or, um, you know, you, you just didn’t want them to have anything, which is really sad in my opinion.
Um, so let’s get back to, to disinheritance. What does that mean? Um, you know, you may be that you, um, you know, you have a child that you haven’t spoken to a while, so you don’t want them to have anything. Uh, it may be that, um, you know, you want to, you know, you’ve already given them their inheritance and so you want to, to not have that share, go to them cause they’ve already received it during lifetime. Whether it’s, you know, you’ve been helping them out along the way, you already gave them, um, what you thought was their inheritance, those kinds of things. Um, or you know, let’s say you just want to skip a generation and go to the grandkids cause you know your kids are doing well and don’t need the money. Uh, ain’t any of those situations. We could have to, um, we’re going to bypass somebody and that’s called disinheritance.
Now, if you want to be really mean, um, and make it very clear, which in some cases many people do, if they come to that point, we are going to say in the trust or the will, you know, I disinherit my child, so-and-so and their heirs. If you don’t want it to go down their family line, um, and they’re to be treated as though they had pre me, meaning that they died before you so that they don’t have any chance of inheriting anything Trust Attorney Las Vegas. Um, now some people have problem with that even though they don’t want their kid to do it, they don’t want it, you know, to be having them feel bad and be like, oh, I completely disinherited. And I think it has this big negative connotation. All disinheritance means is that they are not partaking in getting anything from your estate. And if that’s what you want, technically that’s the term we have to use.
Now. I know it’s harsh, it seems that way. But, um, that’s, that’s the easiest way to make sure that your wishes are carried out. No, we can always just not list them. Um, as a beneficiary, you know, we say your, it goes to this person if they’re not around and then it goes to this person and then this person and so on in your trust. Uh, but the default rule is if we run out of those people, eventually it’s gonna come back to that family member. And if you want that, if all those other people are or are deceased, then sure we can, we can leave it in that way. But if it’s someone you really don’t want to have any part of it, we need to specifically say in the trust of the will that they are disinherited in our, to never partake in any sort of inheritance from this estate.
So, you know, that’s um, you know, can be a big deal for people, but that’s the way we do it. Now let’s talk about another way of disinheriting people that happens accidentally for people who don’t do planning. So let’s say you have a life insurance policy and you, uh, you named your three kids as the beneficiaries and you think you’re all set. Okay, I’ve got them all. It’s all labeled out there. We’re going to be good. Well, um, you know, time goes on and let’s say one of your, your children passes before you, so now you have two kids left. But that child who passed away who died first, they had two kids of their own Trust Attorney Las Vegas. And ideally, well, the way most people want it to work is if their child died, they want their, their grandkids to step up and take their child’s spot and get their one third share of it.
Well, the default on a life insurance payout is that if a beneficiary dies and there’s two other ones named the two other ones, share it all and it doesn’t go to that deceased child’s kids. And so now you just disinherited your grandkids and your, your deceased child’s family line. Not by doing it intentionally, but that’s what happened because you didn’t do a planning Trust Attorney Las Vegas. So that’s another great reason why you should meet with an estate planning attorney and get a trust, get a will. Because in the trust we can say, you know, the life insurance is the beneficiary of that life insurance policies is the trust. So pays into the trust and within the trust we will specify that, that if a child dies, it goes to their kids if they have any. And so that way the two grandkids step up, they get that one third share.
It’s split between them. So they get a sixth each and then the two remaining living children get a third and a third. Um, and you know, that way we make sure that nobody’s disinherited accidentally. It’s always, it’s all purposefully disinherited if anybody is. So those are ways you can be [inaudible]. You can have some disinheritance happen by an unintentional action. And, um, then you know, we hope that you’d meet with an estate planning attorney to talk about those issues and see, see what could happen there. So that’s quick. Um, disinheritance you know, it can be seemed, you know, kind of derogatory to, to put that term in there, but it’s just a legal word. It just has a certain definition that’s been defined by the law Trust Attorney Las Vegas. And so that’s why we like to use that word because it’s very clear with what it means. And so, um, you know, it’s not meant to be anything harsh. We can always put in there. You know, that you express your love towards your, your child, and, and putting even in the reasoning why you’re disinheriting them. Uh, but then we also, you know, put that they are disinherited so that it goes to the correct people that you want to. So hopefully that helps you come to terms with that, uh, with this inheritance, what it means and how it all works together and, uh, appreciate you listening and have a great day.
