Estate laws have not kept pace with all of the latest technological ways that help people have children today. That means that you should have an estate plan that covers them.
The average family today looks a lot different than just a few years ago. Many couples do not stay married for life today and not all of a couples' children are biologically their own.
Americans today live in all sorts of blended families rearing children from multiple marriages.
Estate law has generally kept pace with these changes. However, it often requires careful estate planning.
In the past couple of decades, things have become even more complicated as medical science has developed new ways for people to have children through such things as surrogacies and frozen embryos.
The law has not kept pace with all of these developments, according to Private Wealth in "Yours, Mine, Ours And 'ART'."
When children become part of a family through technological means, it is not always clear what their legal inheritance rights are. Different states have different rules.
For example, if a child is born after someone passes away through implantation of a frozen embryo, should that child have a right to a portion of the estate of the deceased? The default answer is different in different states.
What this means is that people who have or who might have children with technological assistance, need to be sure their estate plans take the laws of their state into account. That makes it more important than ever to have the assistance of an estate planning attorney.
Reference: Private Wealth (Sep. 13, 2017) "Yours, Mine, Ours And 'ART'
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