Wills with children adopted at birth

[whiteglovetest]

We will be doing wills soon and have 2 children together (married 25 years). DH has another child, now a man in his 30's who he has never met. The mum spilt with DH and she met and married someone else whilst pregnant. The child was adopted by the new man and has his name etc and was raised by him. (DH has never had any contact whatsoever and they ceased CM payments from DH after about 6 months after the child was born). I guess they wanted to cut ties. DH feels a lot of guilt but genuinely wanted the child to grow up in a stable family so just kept away.

So we have found out that he does know that DH is his (biol) father but hasn't tried to make any contact.

So my legal questions are - Does this man have a claim on DH's estate when he dies? Do you we need to include him in any way in the will (to avoid a claim)?

How was maintenance paid?

Through child benefit. And then it just stopped after about 6 months, they closed the case.

You have to be present at registration to be named on the birth certificate.

I think the solution is for the OP is for their DH to make a will benefitting their own children. It should probably include a provision making explicit that the child he's never met, does he even know their name?, is disinherited or left only some token item.

If they go down that route I think they need proper legal advice, not a case for a DIY will on a form from WH Smugs.

Thats a very good question. That indicates he could be on the certificate? Ed

He is categorically not on the birth certificate if he hasn’t had any contact with the mother since before the child was born. That is a complete impossibility.

As @Katrinawaves says, unless he went with her to register the birth, he cannot be on the birth certificate.

If women could put men they are unrelated to on the birth certificate without their persence, my Mum could have put Prince Charles on my birth certificate and hoped I'd be in line for the throne 😉

A husband will be assumed by law to be the father, but an unmarried woman cannot put someone down as the father unless he accompanies her to register the birth.

Also, there was no automatic legal parental responsibility to unmarried fathers when the bloke in his 30s was born.

They do in Scotland. This was why the court urged us to just PR for my eldest.

In terms of the will, you just need to make sure he names the people he wants to inherit.
If he put 'all my biological children' or similar, yes there could be a claim. If he doesn't want that, then name the children he does want to inherit, explicitly. And GC if there are any - this is where people often leave it ambiguous to allow for future GC but he needs to remove any ambiguity.
Perhaps he would like to leave the child a legacy though? Perhaps not the same as the DC he raised but maybe a nominal sum to acknowledge the child and his absence?

Order a copy of the birth certificate to give you some answers about who is named as the father.

I was about to say just order a copy of the birth certificate. That will tell you if your husband is named as the father. That's the only way there could be a claim. As others have said though he just needs take it clear in his will who he wants to Inherit.

We'll just have to find out his full name now.

Can you not ask someone? How do you know he knows DH is his birth dad?

I got a letter from the Mum last year. Telling me that he existed. I did already know.

He would have to have gone to register the birth with the mother to have been put on the birth certificate - you couldn't just turn up and say a man was the father and have his name on there.

@whiteglovetest was there a reason to prompt her to write the letter? Had he ‘accidentally’ found out stepdad wasn’t his dad or had he been told from very young age

No idea but I did get an inheritance recently
Maybe she just was thinking about life and time etc and wanted things know.

Did you know before that?

did you or dh respond to that? Is he planning on having a relationship with his child?

i am going to guess the child wasn’t adopted.

Maybe your husband might like to calculate the maintenance he didn't pay and give that to his son upon his death..? Seems fair to acknowledge his child.

That's strange, having a letter like that. I'm glad you'd been told in advance.

I thought that a child born in a marriage was legally assumed to be the child of both parents. I would have thought the new husband's name would be down on the child's birth certificate.

It would be relatively easy to find the birth certificate, knowing he know the approximate date of birth if not the actual date, and knows the mother's full name.

Thats so hard to calculate but a good start

Even 30 years ago the father had to be present for registering the baby to be put on the birth certificate, and if she married the other man before the baby was born I believe his name would automatically go on the birth certificate unless they specifically requested for it not to

The key question is whether you're in England/Wales or somewhere else?

England

They could have put the husband down. But then he (ops dh) also paid CMS so acknowledged the child was his. That would suggest it was a private arrangement.

You can name someone else, other than your husband on a birth certificate. If that person is there. A friend of mine had a baby with a new partner before she was divorces her new partner went with her and the baby was registered as his.

If the Ops dh wasn’t married to the mother he would only be on the certificate if he went when the baby was registered, I believe.

I can’t believe Op or her husband have waited until talking about will before being concerned about this.

We have a similar scenario, the way around it is to name all beneficiaries, so in our case, DS (joint) DSS (mine from previous marriage but treated as own by DH) were both named specifically and DHs DS from previous relationship - never any contact - wasn't included. (Long story, irrelevant to this post)

According to our solicitor , his son wouldn't have any claim.