Children in Scotland cannot be disinherited by their parents. Children of the deceased have always had a basic level of protection from the law, for moral and social reasons. This means that even if a child is not named as a beneficiary in a parent’s will, they still have a right to the estate, which supersedes the terms of the will. The term “child’s entitlement to legal rights” refers to this.
In Scotland, are you excluded from a parent’s will?
Even when the child is absent from the Will, a legal rights claim may be made regarding the parent’s inheritance. The value of legal rights claims varies greatly according to the size of the estate. They also last for a very long life; regardless of age, a child has 20 years from the parent’s date of death to assert or renounce their legal rights. This deadline does not start to run if a child who is underage on the day of death passes away until they turn eighteen.
If a spouse or civil partner survives, the child’s claim for legal rights is determined by the law to be one-third of the worldwide net moveable estate, to be divided equally amongst siblings; in the absence of a surviving spouse or civil partner, the claim is determined to be one-half of the worldwide net moveable estate.
An executor should not wind up the estate without first taking all reasonable and prudent steps to find and contact all children of the deceased and the surviving spouse or civil partner, and informing them of their right to make Legal Rights claims. This is because the Legal Rights of a child, as well as those of the surviving spouse or civil partner along with their prior rights on intestacy, require to be either formally claimed or discharged.
Legal Rights claim
It is worthwhile to pursue enquiries into your Legal Rights claim if you were not granted your right, even if your parent passed away a long time ago and you think you may have been entitled to receive Legal Rights from their estate. If you file a claim later, the executor of the estate may have kept money to cover this. If the executor has not retained enough money, they may have obtained an insurance coverage called a Bond of Caution, which would cover your claim for legal rights.
You have the right to a breakdown of the entire net estate and an accounting of the division and computation of your Legal Rights from the executor when asserting your Legal Rights. Before the Legal Rights shares are determined, certain valid liabilities of the estate must be subtracted, including the costs of estate administration, fees, burial costs, and inheritance tax.
When the legal rights claims are divided and calculated—a process called as collation—and if there are several children and lifetime gifts to one or more of the children have been made by the deceased, these gifts are notionally added back to the net movable estate. The goal of this is to guarantee that children receive an equitable share. Depending on the estate’s valuation, legal rights claims may be substantial and difficult to compute at times.
To ensure that you receive your entire rights, our dependable private client solicitors may offer you professional legal advice, help with all facets of your Legal Rights claim, and independently confirm that your share has been computed accurately. We can offer thorough guidance on all other facets of advance directives, powers of attorney, guardianships, executries and estate administration. We will be pleased to help you and are now providing initial appointments by phone or video technologies.