Q: What are my rights being the oldest son of a legal marriage that protect me from my younger halve brother taking father

A: Please know there is no automatic right to an inheritance. If your father chose to leave all his assets to a charity, he could do so. I have one client who decided not to leave her children anything. So, if your father has a trust or will saying who he wants to receive his assets, that document will control the situation and, in most cases, there will be nothing you can do about it. Again, the law allows people to do whatever they want with their own assets. On the other hand, if your father had lost sufficient legal capacity, such as if he had advanced dimentia at the time he signed a will, then you could go to court to invalidate it. But that wouldn’t get you in a better place. If your father had no trust or will, then his heirs by law would receive everything. Biological children — whether from married parents or unmarried parents — can receive a share. Our society today is much different than the days when children born out of wedlock were excluded. The values, manners and lack of respect people show each other today would be unrecognizable to people who lived in the era when society cared whether people were married before having children.

A: Absent an estate plan that states otherwise, a child born out of wedlock in California is still entitled to inheritance. It is important to encourage our parents to hire an experienced estate planning attorney so that their wishes can be properly spelled out.