Omitted child statutes provide a way for an after-born child to inherit from a deceased parent’s will. Normally, children who are cut out of their parents’ will cannot file claim against their parents’ estate. However, in rare cases when the child is born or adopted after the will is executed, omitted child statutes allow that child to file a claim against the estate. Omitted child statutes are designed to read in an implied intention to include the after-born child in the parents’ will. The statutes protect only inadvertently omitted children, so if the parent’s will clearly intended to not pass on the estate to their children, an after-born child would not be able to file a claim against the estate.
New York’s Estates Powers and Trusts Law §5-3.2 provides that “Whenever a testator has a child born after the execution of a last will, and dies leaving the after-born child unprovided for by any settlement, and neither provided for nor in any way mentioned in the will, every such child shall succeed to a portion of the testator's estate…”
[Last updated in July of 2023 by the Wex Definitions Team]
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