Law of Descent

As a general rule, the criminal or other fault of a surviving spouse does not exclude his or her inheritance rights in the testator`s estate if the law on filiation and distribution confers certain rights on the surviving spouse and does not provide for an exception in case of fault. A general rule in American ancestry law is that if the intestate has left no direct descendant or parents, brothers, sisters, or their descendants, the grandfather takes the succession before uncles and aunts as the intstate`s closest relatives. n. the system of laws that determines who inherits and divides the property of a person who has died without a will (intestate ab). (See: filiation, inheritance, legal succession, degree of kinship) In some jurisdictions, laws allow a person, identifying him, to designate another person to replace him as the legal heir in the event of death. Anyone can be a designated heir, even a stranger to the identifier. The law does not grant designated heir status until the designation has taken effect upon the death of the identifier. The identifier can revoke the designation until his death and then name another one. After the death of the identifier, a designated heir has the status of legal heir and, by law, the status of legitimate child of the identifier. For example, H designates his wife W as his legal heir. H and W are childless. H is the only child of F.

F. dies after H`s intestate death. The current law on filiation and distribution transfers all of F`s assets to his descendants in a direct line. W inherits all of F`s property because she was H`s designated successor and is considered H`s child for inheritance purposes. It is therefore descending in a straight line from F. If the designated heir dies before the identifier, his heirs generally do not have the right to inherit the legal mass of the identifier. Lineage rules vary slightly from state to state. As a general rule, if an owner dies without a will, the estate passes directly to the descendants. For example, from father or grandfather to son or grandson. Subject to the rights of the surviving spouse, children have a higher inheritance tax than other blood relatives. In many jurisdictions, the same principle applies to children adopted from intestate law. Once the debts of the estate have been paid and the surviving spouse has taken over his or her legal share, the rest of the estate is divided into equal distribution shares, the shares provided for by the Filiation and Distribution Act, among the number of children of the deceased.

The rights of the child or children of the deceased are superior to those not only of siblings, nieces and nephews and other secondary relatives, but also of the parents of the deceased. When there was no will, Florida`s ancestry and distribution laws often play a critical role in determining the division of property among other family members. Progress A grant is similar to an absolute or irrevocable gift of money, real estate or personal property. It is done in the present from a parent to a child in anticipation of what the child`s legal share will be when the parent dies. An advance differs from an ordinary gift in that it reduces the child`s share of the distribution of the parental estate by only the specified amount, while a gift reduces the entire estate. The doctrine of advances is based on the theory that a parent is supposed to have equal rights for all his or her children to have equal rights, not only to what may remain upon the death of the parent, but to all property belonging to the parent. The laws on filiation and distribution may provide for the taking into account of advances made by a testator during his lifetime in order to achieve an equal distribution of the estate among the children. The problem was defined as all people in the lineage, regardless of the degree of proximity or distance from the original source.

Some assets cannot be the subject of a will. For this reason, the laws on parentage and distribution are not affected. These assets are automatically transferred to the beneficiaries – with or without a will. The terms heirs, close relatives and distributors generally refer to persons who, ipso jure – the application of established legal norms – inherit or succeed to a person`s property after his death. Laws generally confer inheritance rights only on blood relatives, adopted children, adoptive parents and the surviving spouse. Lineage is the order or series of people descended from each other or from all common ancestors, in a lineage in the order of their birth, which shows the connection of all relatives through blood. Direct lineage includes people who are directly descended from the same ancestor, such as father and son or grandfather and grandson. Whether an adopted child can be considered in the direct line depends on the law of the respective jurisdiction.

The collateral line includes people who are descended from a common ancestor, such as brothers who have the same father or cousins who have the same grandfather. Ownership by descent differs from title by purchase because filiation involves the application of the law while purchase involves the act or agreement of the parties. As a rule, direct descendants have the first preference in the order of succession, followed by ascendants (people in the collateral line of ascension) and finally collateral heirs. Each generation is called the degree of determination of consanguinity or consanguinity of one or more persons to an intestate ab. If the next of kin of the deceased who are entitled to the succession are in equal shares with the deceased, such as the children, they also share the estate. Imagine, for example, a mother who has two daughters, her only living parents, and dies without inheritance, leaving an estate of $100,000. Since the two daughters had the same blood relationship with their mother, they divided their estate equally and inherited $50,000 each. If, at the time of death, the estate of the deceased is situated in the State of his domicile or permanent residence, the law of that State shall govern his filiation and distribution. Local laws governing the area where the property is located usually determine the ancestry of real estate such as land, houses, and farms, regardless of the residence of the deceased owner.

The succession, disposition and distribution of personal or movable property, wherever situated, shall be governed by the law of the domicile or succession of the owner at the time of death, unless otherwise provided by the law of the State in which the property is situated. Unless otherwise provided by law, the inheritance rights of the surviving spouse are not affected by a subsequent marriage after the death of the deceased. The rights of a survivor of a second or subsequent marriage of the deceased are the same as if he or she were the survivor of the first marriage. In a number of States, the rights of a survivor of a second or subsequent marriage of the deceased or of a surviving spouse who subsequently remarries are governed by laws that expressly regulate filiation in the event of remarriage. Since the privilege of obtaining property by inheritance is not a natural right but a legal creation, the legislature of a State has full or complete authority over the descent and distribution of property within the borders of the State, subject to the restrictions contained in constitutions and treaties.