Family Law: Successions and Divorce

In any family law practice, a lawyer might affect a number of different changes for various families.  Perhaps he or she performs a divorce here and an adoption there.  There are a number of ways that a family law lawyer can help forge relationships between family members.

One thing about divorce, adoption, filiation, and other family law matters is that oftentimes these actions create binding legal relationships.  Sometimes these relationships become highly relevant, such as where a parent owes child support, or an ex-spouse owes alimony.  But they are also highly relevant in the case of the situation covered by today’s article: intestate transfers.

Intestate is just a fancy legal word for when a person dies without leaving a will.  What does that have to do with family law?  Well, just about everything!  You see, a will typically allows a person to order their property’s dispersal to whomever and however they see fit (assuming it is not contrary to any law of the state.)  That is the essence of will.

Without a will, the state of Louisiana feels that it is good public policy to keep the property of a deceased person in the family.  More specifically, the spouse and children are the two categories of people who will have preference in an intestate situation. 

To explain the significance of family law on an intestate transfer, let’s use some examples.  Let’s say Johnny is married to Marcia.  Although they are married, they have not lived together in over twenty years.  For whatever reason, they just never decided to get a divorce.  Additionally, they had one child together, Dustin.  After getting separated, Johnny and Marcia barely spoke, because they really detested one another.  Also, Dustin always blamed Johnny for the separation, and so he made a point not to ever speak with his father. 

Now let’s say that Johnny has spent the last ten years of his life in a very loving relationship with Tina.  Johnny and Tina never saw fit to get married, because they thought that the label of marriage could change a relationship for the worse and because it would mean that Johnny would have to divorce Marcia.  Instead, they just decided to remain boyfriend and girlfriend.  Furthermore, Tina already had a son by another marriage, named Alex.  Over the course of Johnny’s time with Tina, he basically became Alex’s de facto father.  The two became very close, and Alex called Johnny “Dad.”

Now let’s say that Johnny died unexpectedly, leaving no will.  Johnny had a great deal of property when he died, because he was a successful entrepreneur that owned three different and all very successful businesses.  Despite the fact that he had an awesome relationship with Tina and her son Alex, they will get no inheritance whatsoever from Johnny’s estate.  The reason?  Because they did not ever form a formal legal family relationship with him!  On the other hand, Marcia and Dustin stand to inherit from Johnny’s estate, even though their relationship was strained at best, because there was no divorce.

The above example is an important reminder as to how family law decisions can have a huge impact.  Will Beaumont has a law practice in southeast Louisiana. 

This article was written with the sole intention of providing broad information on the law.  It is not legal advice. Please contact an attorney for any legal questions.