Legal Question in Family Law in California

If you are adopted you lose birth family inheritance rights in favor of adoptive family inheritance rights.

Actually, there is a complicated statute involved.

Normally, an adopted child is deemed a descendant of the person who adopted him, the same as a natural child. The adopted child inherits from the adoptive parents and from their relatives, and they in turn can inherit from the adopted child. (Prob. Code, sect. 6450.)

The adoption severs the relationship of parent and child between an adopted person and the adopted person's natural parents, and the adopted person does not hinherit from her natural parents or their relatives, unless (i) the natural and adopted person lived together at any time as parent and child, or the natural parent was married to, or cohabiting with, the other natural parent at the time the child was conceived and that parent died before the birth to the child; AND (ii) the adoption was by the spouse of either of te anatural parents of the adopted person or after the death of either of the natural parents. (Prob. Code, sect. 6451.)

Probate Code section 6451 was created by Assembly Bill 1137, and went into effect in 1994.

That section is part of California's Intestate Succession rules, so if there was a will, it would not help you.

The issue would not be when you were adopted, but rather when your natural father died, assuming that the statute applied to you.