Q: Why wouldn't settlement go to living widow after my father's passing?
My father recently passed away in Ohio, and he was contacted about a settlement related to his father's land with oil rights. There was no will, and my mother has a marriage certificate as his widow. My father had children from a previous relationship, and they are claiming they should split the settlement three ways with my mother, excluding me and my siblings (his children with my mother). Why wouldn't the settlement go entirely to his living widow?
A:
The actual answer is within Ohio's Statute of Descent and Distribution R.C. 2105.06 (C) states that if the person dies the property passes as follows:
"If there is a spouse and one child of the decedent or the child's lineal descendants surviving and the surviving spouse is not the natural or adoptive parent of the decedent's child, the first twenty thousand dollars plus one-half of the balance of the intestate estate to the spouse and the remainder to the child or the child's lineal descendants, per stirpes" so your mom gets 20K plus one-half. The children from the other relationship get the other half (minus the 20k your mom gets off the top. The policy underlying this statute supposes you will inherit from your mother eventually. This is a sad lesson on why EVERYONE needs an estate plan.
Nicholas P. Weiss agrees with this answer
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