Deadbeat Parents – Why Should They Inherit From You?

Many children these days have grown up in a single-parent household. The question is was one of your parents an absentee parent or more commonly referred to as deadbeat parent. When it comes to estate planning many young people do not feel that they are old enough or have enough assets to set up a simple Last Will and Testament. The fact of the matter is that with a simple will you gain control over who inherits from you. If you were raised by your mother and your father was a deadbeat parent who never paid child support, never visited you or never excepted any responsibility for your upbringing, why would you want him to inherit from you. Although Michigan law has a specific law to punish absent or deadbeat parents, there still the responsibility of the parent that was active in your life to defend against a deadbeat parent’s claim to part of the inheritance. Essentially, the law states that the sperm donor dad or egg donor mother who doesn’t acknowledge their child or fails to support their child during when they are a minor is not to be treated as a parent for purposes of inheritance. Unfortunately, the parent that has provided the support and care may be put in a position of proving that the other parent is in fact a deadbeat. The legal costs and emotional drain may be overwhelming. The good news is that setting up a simple will, no matter how young you are, prevents a lot of problems in the end by making sure your assets will be passed to the good parent at the time of your death.