There’s No Law Requiring a Bequest to Any Child

Q: Can a child born out of wedlock inherit when the father dies? I had a 40-year affair that produced a child. She was never acknowledged by the father, and he and I stopped seeing each other at his insistence when his health began to fail. Our daughter does not know of the relationship. He was a corporate CEO and has quite an estate. He has never helped us in any way during the last 40 years, but we were never in great want. However, our daughter is facing several physical and financial challenges. Naturally, I would like for our daughter to have a little more security in her future, and I have nothing to leave her.

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A: I hate to sound like a scold, but you should have thought of that a little earlier.

First of all, there is no law requiring that parents leave their children--acknowledged or otherwise--one thin dime.

Children who are not specifically named in a will have sometimes been able to challenge the document--”Surely if he were in his right mind, Daddy wouldn’t have forgotten me!” That’s why many a wily attorney will insist that everybody who might possibly have a claim--especially children--be specifically listed in the will, followed by some firmly worded passage that these people are to be turned away at the door. The nicer ones just say, “To Cindy, daughter of my secretary, I give my love and affection.”

There are laws requiring that parents support their minor children, but unless this is a very late-in-life baby, she is probably beyond the age of mandatory child support.

It’s unfortunate you let this guy skate on his paternal responsibilities, both financially and emotionally. Perhaps if some bond had developed between the man and his daughter, he would be in a mood to remember her in a will. If you want to try to challenge his will after his death, be prepared to hire a good lawyer and spend a lot of money. If he has “quite an estate,” his beneficiaries aren’t going to let go easily.

Clarifying Response on Living Trust

Q: Please clarify your April 11 response regarding the new California law that requires trustees to provide copies of a living trust to all beneficiaries and heirs within 60 days of the trust creator’s death. Does this apply when there is a death of only one of the co-trustors, as appears to be the case for the stepdaughter who wrote to you?

Your description alarms us because we are co-trustors of our living trust, and we intended that the surviving spouse could change the trust after the death of the other, according to current circumstances and in complete privacy. We are appalled that copies of our trust would have to be mailed to everyone who is included (and excluded!) as a beneficiary when one of us dies.

This makes no sense and would make life unbearable for the surviving spouse. We hope you meant that the stepdaughter, as successor trustee, would be legally entitled to a copy of her father’s trust if no co-trustor were still alive.

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A: Alas, that’s not what I meant at all. Whether the law requiring notification of beneficiaries and heirs actually applies to you depends on whether your trust includes certain estate-planning provisions.

The trustee must send out the notice once a trust becomes irrevocable. When that happens depends on how your living trust is set up.

If your trust, like many, contains measures to save on estate taxes, such as a bypass or A-B trust, the exemption or “B” part of the trust becomes irrevocable on the death of the first spouse. (With a bypass trust, a portion of the estate is essentially set aside for future heirs.

The surviving spouse is allowed to live off the income from that portion and may tap the principal in certain instances, but the intent is to preserve assets for the ultimate heirs.)

The “A” part of the trust remains revocable and under the control of the surviving spouse; there’s no requirement that beneficiaries be notified about what’s included in that part of the trust until the surviving spouse dies.

If you have a basic living trust that is just designed to avoid probate and has no other trust provisions, the trust doesn’t become irrevocable until the death of the second spouse. Until that time, the surviving spouse can indeed change the terms to suit new circumstances and do so without anyone else being the wiser.

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Liz Pulliam is a personal finance writer for The Times and a graduate of the certified financial planner training program at UC Irvine. She will answer questions submitted--or inspired--by readers on a variety of financial issues in this column. She regrets that she cannot respond personally to queries. Questions can be sent to her at liz.pulliam@latimes.com or mailed to her in care of Money Talk, Business Section, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053. For past Money Talk questions and answers, visit The Times’ Web site at https://www.latimes.com/moneytalk.