It's not up to us: Father or mother died and there is no will. What do we do?

January 25, 2015   

The field of inheritance and bequests is a particularly sensitive legal area that must be considered. Some of us would prefer not to deal with it before its time, but for some of us, it is not up to us to deal with the issue and settle it, for example, when a family member passes away suddenly.

In this article, we will attempt to address just one point from the many and sensitive issues in this area. In many families, the children of the deceased are denied their share of the estate in favor of the surviving spouse. We will attempt to address one point on the issue of waiver: the distribution ratio when an heir waives his share of the inheritance, when one of the heirs is a minor.

 What to do when there is no will

The law in the State of Israel states that when one of the parents dies, according to the law of inheritance If there is no will, the inheritance is divided equally between the surviving parent and the children. That is, the surviving parent receives 50% of the estate, and the children share in the remaining 50% of the estate. For example, when the father of the family dies and the family has three children, the deceased's wife will receive 50% of his estate and each of the children will receive 1/3 of the remaining 50%. That is, from the perspective of all the family assets, the mother will receive 75% - her original share of 50% plus 25% (which are 50% of the 50% belonging to the deceased husband), and each of the children - in the case of three as mentioned - 8.333%.

According to the law, there are various situations that one may encounter when seeking to file a request for an inheritance order. We will address two situations:

When all the heirs are adults - In such a situation, there are two options for submitting the application for an inheritance order:

A. Filing a request for an inheritance order in which all of the deceased's heirs will be listed. This means that in the inheritance order, both the surviving parent and the children will be listed as heirs, and each of them will receive their share, in accordance with the law - as stated in the introduction.

on. The children, as mentioned, when they are all adults, sign affidavits of renunciation of the estate in favor of the surviving parent. This means that the children give up their share of the deceased parent's estate, and transfer their share to the living parent.

In this way, the heir, as recorded in the inheritance order, is only the surviving parent, and he is the one who will receive all the assets of the estate. As a result, when the surviving parent passes away - in due course - and in the absence of a will of the parent to the contrary, all the children inherit equally all the assets of the parent, which are in effect all the assets of their parents.

 fromWhat to do when there are minors among the heirs

When some of the deceased parent's heirs are minors, who have not yet reached the age of 18, they cannot withdraw from the estate in favor of the remaining parent. Even in such a case, there are two options for inheritance and filing a petition for an inheritance order:

A. The heirs are all the heirs of the deceased. That is, no one leaves the estate. The surviving parent as well as the adult and minor children will inherit the deceased. Hence, in the inheritance order, both the surviving parent and the All the children, The adults and the minors will each receive their share when the estate is divided. As for the minors, their share is held until they reach the age of 18, either by the remaining parent or a third party, who is a guardian or executor of the estate.

on. The adult children of the deceased waive their share in the estate - by signing affidavits of renunciation of the estate in favor of the remaining parent (it is also possible to waive in favor of all or some of the minor siblings, but we will not discuss this). This means that the adult children are essentially giving up their share of the deceased parent's estate.. They are not heirs and some of it passes to the surviving parent.

As a result, they are not registered as heirs in the succession order and will not receive any part of the deceased parent's estate. The minor children cannot withdraw from the estate, so they remain heirs and as a result are also registered as heirs in the succession order along with the surviving parent.

The significance of this option for adult children who withdraw from the estate is that after a long life and years, when the remaining parent also passes away, they will share equally with their siblings who were minors at the time of the first parent's death in the estate of the second deceased parent.

This means that the children who were minors at the time of the first parent's death also received their share of the estate from the parent who died first and will also receive their share of the estate of the parent who died second. It is important to understand that the estate of the second deceased parent also includes the share of the children who were adults at the time of the first parent's death and who withdrew from the estate.

To illustrate the issue, we will examine the matter in a table in a situation where a family has two children, one adult and one minor, and the father died first:

 

""Total estate" means all of the family's assets (both parents, the first deceased and the second deceased).

If the adult does not first withdraw from the deceased's estate, after a long life and years and upon the death of the other parent, then in the case described above, each of the children will be left with 50% of the total estate.

 In conclusion

As written at the beginning of the article, when submitting a request for an inheritance order, all the data must be taken into account and a decision made in accordance with the wishes of the heirs and the family.

In the margins, we would like to note that balancing can be carried out in the event that a person who is now an adult waives property in favor of the surviving parent - through a will, which determines a balancing distribution that takes into account the waiver and in fact balances, at the end of the day and after the longevity and years of the surviving parent, the distribution in relation to the total estate among all the children.

Attorney Zvi ("Tsiki") Wolfson He is a managing partner. At the Wolfson Weinstein & Co. office'. המאמר נכתב בסיוע מנהלת המשרד, גב' עדי לב.