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Will dead husband's children from a previous marriage inherit if second wife dies intestate?
My friend's husband died a few years ago. She is now terminally ill but has not made a will and there are no children or relatives on her side of the family. Her husband had children from a previous partnership. On her demise will those children have a claim on her estate?
As usual, it depends.
If the husband left everything to the wife with a will, now on her death she is free to do what she wants with the assets he gave her. If she chooses not to do a will then the Intestacy Rules will apply to her and some long lost and forgotten relations may find themselves inheriting her estate.
Unless she adopted those children from Husband's previous partnership , they do not count as her "issue" under the Rules and they won't inherit from her on her intestacy. It is very rare that Intestates' estates end up going to the Crown and even though the lady is described as having "no relatives on her side of the family" the Rules are generous and most times someone can be traced to inherit.
If however, the children from the previous relationship were treated by her as "children of the family" or were financially dependant upon her, then they could have a claim against her Estate under the Inheritance Act 1975.
If the husband didn't do a will , then the Intestacy Rules would have applied to him as well, and what the widow would be entitled to would have depended upon the size of husband's estate and what family he was survived by. If she didn't check it out at the time but just assumed she was entitled to everything, that might not have been the case. In many cases on an intestacy the surviving spouse only gets a life interest and on his/her death some property reverts to the children of the deceased.
So, maybe the deceased's children could be entitled on the lady's death to something but under her husband's intestacy not hers!
Also, they would have had an Inheritance Act claim against their father as his children. The time limit for such a claim is normally 6 months from the Grant so if he died "A few years ago" then the children would appear to be out of time but there is discretion for a Judge to extend the time limit if it is in the interests of Justice so they might still be able to claim.
So short answer- probably not but without more background can't say for sure.
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