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Blog Post

Daughters- & Sons-in-Law

Tiffany Tucker • Nov 10, 2015

From the Sentinel Record's October 2015 Senior Scene

Many of my senior clients report to me that they are having conflicts with their daughter-in-law or son-in-law.

While none of us like to discuss tensions in our families, the fact still remains that in many families, you may not have a close relationship with the spouse of your adult child. Indeed, sometimes these relationships are quite unpleasant and even hostile.

Many seniors wish to take steps to ensure that any inheritance received by their adult child does not ultimately pass to the in-law with which the senior has a bad relationship. Rather, many seniors would rather that their child’s inheritance, instead, ultimately pass to their grandchildren (either in the event that the adult child should predecease, or alternatively in the event the adult child receives the inheritance).

If you wish to prevent your daughter-in-law or your son-in-law from receiving a part of your estate, how do you do this? First you need to be clear in your estate planning documents that if your adult child should predecease you, their share passes to your grandchildren. Further, you can also include a direction that the adult child’s inheritance continues in a trust that ultimately reverts to the grandchildren and not to the in-law. This can give your adult child generous access to his or her inheritance, but eliminate rights of the in-law of whom you are not fond.

Eliminating the possible inheritance rights of your son-in-law or daughter-in-law is not difficult to implement as part of your overall estate plan. It can be a good solution for the many seniors who just cannot abide the thought that an in-law, who has a bad relationship with the senior, might receive a large portion of the seniors’ estate.


Tiffany Tucker is an associate attorney at Farrar & Williams, PLLC and can be contacted at 501-525-4401 or by email at tiffany@farrarwilliams.com . She can answer any questions you have about this subject.

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