Once your adoption is final, your family may feel complete. Most parents aren’t thinking about their will at that moment. But if you made your will before the adoption, it may not match your family anymore.
Adoption changes legal relationships in several ways. Some of those changes happen automatically. Others only happen if you update your estate plan. At Jimeno & Gray, our Maryland adoption attorneys help parents understand what to do.
Let’s discuss how an adoption impacts estate planning and what you can do about it. To discuss your situation with our lawyers, contact our family law firm today.
Key Takeaways:
- While inheritance rights for an adopted child are the same as a biological child, it’s worth double-checking your documents for potentially exclusionary language that could affect your adopted child.
- For blended families, adoption of a stepchild is possible. You can also explicitly name a stepchild in wills and other key documents without having to adopt them.
- When updating or rewriting your will after an adoption, it may be prudent to date the new will after the adoption took place. Ensure your adopted child’s name appears in the updated will as well.
- Keep copies of all relevant documents and records that have been updated just in case issues arise.
Inheritance Rights for Adopted Children in Maryland
An adopted child has the same right to inherit from you as a biological child. You don’t need to add special language to your will for this to be true. Maryland’s inheritance rules treat adopted and biological children the same.
Adoption also ends your child’s legal ties to their birth family. After the adoption is final, your child no longer inherits from their birth relatives, and those relatives no longer inherit from your child.
How Adoption Impacts Inheritance Rights
Here are some things the adoption does on its own, without any extra steps from you:
- Gives your child full inheritance rights from you if you die without a will
- Lets your child inherit from your parents and siblings through you
- Makes your child one of your descendants in any trust that leaves money to your descendants
- Lets your child bring a wrongful death claim if you die because of someone else’s fault
- Gives your child the same rights as any other child you have
Maryland sets out this rule in Maryland Code, Estates and Trusts § 1-207. The law treats an adopted child as the child of the adoptive parents. It also ends the child’s legal status as the child of either birth parent.
Double-Check the Language in All of Your Estate Planning Documents
The words in your estate planning documents still matter, though. Some older wills and trusts leave gifts only to “children of your body” or “natural issue.”
Wording like that could leave out an adopted child, even though the law treats them the same.
How Adoption Could Affect Blended Families
Stepparent adoption works differently from other adoptions. The law above has an exception for it. When a stepparent adopts a child, the child stays the legal child of the birth parent who is married to that stepparent.
If a stepparent never adopts, the result is very different. Under Maryland law, a stepchild or foster child usually doesn’t count as your child for inheritance purposes. That means a child you raised without adopting may have no automatic right to inherit from you.
Adoption decides who is a legal parent. It doesn’t measure how close your family is. A family can live together as one household for 20 years, and the law can still treat its members differently.
Scenarios That Blended Families Could Face
Here are four common situations in blended families. Each one can change who inherits:
- Stepparent Adoption Completed: The child can inherit from you and from your spouse. The child also keeps their legal tie to the birth parent you married. Your other children will share your estate with one more person, so your will should say how you want that to work.
- Stepchild Never Adopted: Without an adoption, the child doesn’t automatically inherit from you, no matter how close you are. The only reliable way to leave them something is to name them in your will and trust.
- Equitable Adoption Claimed Later: In rare cases, a person who was never formally adopted may try to inherit by proving the parent meant to adopt them and treated them as their own child. These cases are very hard to prove. They can take years in court and rarely end well for anyone.
- Adult Adoption of a Stepchild: Adopting a grown stepchild gives them the same inheritance rights as adopting a young child. Other children in the family may have strong feelings about it, so talk with them before you file.
Figuring out which of these situations fits your family is an important first step in planning.
Updating Your Will After Adopting
Your old will still counts after you adopt. Maryland doesn’t cancel it. Instead, the law gives your new child a share of your estate. That can create problems that a new will would avoid.
Under Maryland Code, Estates and Trusts § 3-301, if you adopt a child after signing your will and the will doesn’t provide for them, the child can still receive a share. The law sets that share using a formula. The money comes out of the gifts you left to other people. There are a few narrow exceptions.
What to Consider When Rewriting/Drafting an Updated Will
A share set by law doesn’t reflect your wishes. Your child gets a fixed portion instead of the plan you would have chosen. It also reduces the gifts you meant for others.
Writing a new will avoids this problem. When you update your will, check these items:
- Your child’s full legal name, as shown on the new birth certificate
- Language that covers any children you may adopt in the future
- A personal representative you trust to look out for your child
- Instructions for who should take over adoption assistance payments if you die, if your child receives them
- Any gifts that assumed you had no children
Signing a new will after the adoption costs much less than a family fight over your estate later. A will dated after the adoption also shows that you knew about your child when you signed it.
Updating or Setting Up Trusts After Adopting
Your trusts may need attention even sooner than your will. Many trusts leave money to a group, such as “my children.” Under Maryland law, that group includes your adopted child. But if your trust names each child by name, your adopted child won’t be included unless you add them.
Some adopted children have special needs. Children adopted through the Anne Arundel County Department of Social Services may have an adoption assistance agreement, medical needs, or government benefits. A direct gift of money could affect those benefits.
What to Consider When Updating a Trust
Older trusts often don’t plan for an adopted child. Read through your trust and check how it handles each of these questions:
- Does the trust leave money to “my children” as a group or to each child by name?
- Does it use one shared fund or a separate share for each child?
- Could a payment from the trust affect your child’s government benefits?
- Can the trustee pay for things like therapy, tutoring, or travel?
- If your child receives adoption assistance, who would receive those payments if you die?
Setting up your trust the right way can protect benefits your child may rely on for many years. A supplemental needs trust can hold money for extra expenses. When it is written correctly, the money usually doesn’t count against your child’s eligibility for needs-based benefits.
Updating Beneficiary Designations After Adopting
Beneficiary forms name who gets an account or policy when you die. Your will doesn’t control them. The company follows the last form you filed. If your form names your spouse and two children by name, only those three people get the money. Your adopted child gets nothing from that account.
It’s usually better to name your children as a group. A retirement account form that says “my children in equal shares” includes your adopted child automatically. Some companies may still ask for proof of the adoption before they pay.
Check All Accounts for the Following Information
Old forms are easy to forget. Look at every beneficiary form you have signed, and check whether any of these apply:
- Forms that list each child by first and last name
- Forms that name your spouse but leave the backup beneficiary blank
- Older policies that name a former partner
- Work forms you filled out when you were hired and never updated
- Accounts where a child’s share must go to a custodian, meaning an adult who manages the money for them
Keep Copies of All Updated Paperwork Just in Case
Keeping the right records makes this easier. Keep a certified copy of the adoption decree with your insurance and account records. That way, no one has to prove your child’s relationship to you during an already hard time.
Minor children create another issue. Insurance companies and account managers usually won’t pay money directly to a child. If your forms don’t name a custodian ahead of time, the money may have to wait until a court appoints one.
Updating Guardianship Designations After Adopting a Minor
Naming a guardian becomes even more important once your adoption is final. A guardian is the person who would raise your child if you can’t. After the adoption, the birth parents no longer have parental rights, so fewer people can challenge your choice.
Naming a guardian helps guide the court, but the judge doesn’t have to follow it. The judge will decide what is best for your child. Talking with the person you want to name, and explaining your choice, can make your wishes carry more weight.
This is one way adoption can be simpler than a stepfamily situation. Once the adoption is final, no birth parent can claim a right to raise the child. That puts the person you name in a stronger position.
Things to Consider When Picking a Potential Guardian for a Minor Child
Choosing a guardian for an adopted child can raise extra questions. Think through each of these before you choose:
- Who already has a relationship with your child?
- Can that person afford to raise another child?
- How far would your child have to move from school and friends?
- Would brothers and sisters be able to stay together?
- Who would serve if your first and second choices both say no?
Write down why you made your choice. A short letter explaining why you picked one relative over another gives a judge helpful background that a form can’t.
Other Important Updates to Consider After You’ve Adopted
Some paperwork outside your estate plan also needs to be updated. Many of these items have deadlines. Health insurance, taxes, and identity records all change once your child legally joins your family.
These four items cause the most trouble if you wait too long after the adoption:
- The Amended Birth Certificate: If your child was born in Maryland, the Maryland Department of Health’s Division of Vital Records issues a new birth certificate after the adoption and seals the original. Update every account, school record, and insurance file with your child’s new legal name.
- Health Insurance Enrollment: Adoption gives you a special window to add your child to your health insurance, but it closes quickly. If you miss it, your child could go without coverage until the next open enrollment period.
- A Written Letter of Instruction: Write down your child’s medical history, daily routine, and personal needs. Keep it where someone can easily find it. A new caregiver may not know the things you take for granted.
- Retirement and Tax Records: Adding a child can change your tax withholding, tax credits, and sometimes your eligibility for other benefits. Updating these records early helps you avoid problems at tax time.
It helps to take care of these tasks at the same time as your will and trust. Families who handle everything together are more likely to finish it all.
How a Lawyer Can Help Your Family Plan Ahead
Our firm handles both adoption and estate planning, so we can help you update your estate plan soon after your adoption is final. Your adoption and your estate documents should be handled as one project.
We know which changes the adoption made automatically and which ones still need your signature. This helps adoptive families to avoid double the work or missing something important. Anne Arundel County parents come to us for help at every stage of the process.
Contact Our Law Firm to Update Your Estate After Adoption
You may feel lost or overwhelmed with making all these key updates, but you don’t have to do this on your own. Let our team help you avoid mistakes. To request a consultation with the lawyers at Jimeno & Gray, P.A., contact our law firm online.