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If a family member is not asked
about, that family member is not entitled to a portion
of the intestate estate in that state and/or with the
family facts you have provided.
An
Intestacy Calculator's™ failure to
ask about any particular family member generally results
from one of two factors:
1) Those
family members are "trumped" by more closely related
family members.
Every time you answer a question, the
Intestacy Calculator™ evaluates that answer to determine
whether it has enough information or if it needs to ask
for information.
If it has enough family information,
it calculates the intestate distribution by interpreting
the intestacy laws and automatically shows the summary.
If it doesn't have enough information, it determines
which question must be shown to gather the appropriate
information.
Questions are presented in order of
priority according to the unique laws of that state.
For instance, every state will ask about children before
asking about grandparents, if at all.
In this situation, the person you are
expecting to see may be entitled to a portion of the
intestate estate with specific circumstances, but not
with the circumstances you have provided.
For example, if you indicate there
are living children you are not typically asked about
living siblings, because the intestate laws do not
require a decedent's children to share with the
decedent's siblings.
As
another example, most states will not ask about living
siblings when you indicate a parent is living, because
the laws of those states 'stop' when they find a living
parent.
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Other states, such as
Illinois and
Missouri, will always ask about living siblings no
matter how many parents there are, while Texas will only
ask about siblings when there is just one parent or no
parents.
The questions you are asked is
entirely dependent upon the interaction of the
information you have given up to that point and the laws
of that state.
2) Those family
members are simply not included with that state's
intestacy laws.
The
intestate laws of every single state are different.
This means that, while
Maryland may ask about living step-children at a
certain point,
New York may seem to stop abruptly with an 'escheat'
answer.
For
example,
Pennsylvania's last qualified level of relation is
"the grandchild of an uncle or aunt," which is a
first cousin once-removed. Any person more
distantly related than this will not receive a portion
of the decedent's intestate estate, even if the decedent
does not have any other living relations.
As
another example,
Delaware asks for "Any living relatives not
mentioned above?" before showing the escheat answer,
because Delaware's laws also distribute the intestate
estate to the "next of kin." Unlike Pennsylvania,
Delaware does not have a last qualified level of
relation, but basically tries to find any one before
allowing the property to escheat.
Every state has different intestacy
laws that are entirely independent of every other
state's intestacy laws. Although one state may
provide a portion of the intestate estate to a
particular family relation, that does not obligate or
affect any other state's provision or lack of provision
being made to the same family member.
If you aren't asked about a specific
family member under any circumstances, that family
member is not entitled to a portion of the intestate
estate under the laws of that state without any regard
to the other family circumstances.
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