Legal Question in Family Law in Georgia

Re: rights of adopted children

An adopted child is treated the same as a natural child and gets his share of the estate. If the estate size is significant, you should sit down with a lawyer immediately.

Re: rights of adopted children

My cursory review of this issue indicates that Virginia and Georgia have virtually identical laws on this subject, i.e., that the entry of a decree of adoption terminates all rights of inheritance(whether to real or personal property)of the subject child from his or her natural parents.

The Georgia statute dealing with this issue apparently is found at Sec. 19-8-19 of the Georgia Code and the Virginia statute at Section 64.1-5.1 of the Code of Virginia.

Re: rights of adopted children

Here are some brief thoughts.

Did your father surrender his parental rights? That would probably terminate your claim. However, it wasn't long ago that non-legitimated biological fathers were not required to surrender, and often were not even given notice.

Did you maintain contact and/or a relationship with your biological father? If your father was elderly, did you care for him, provide support, etc.?

We need the specific facts to include who the competitors for the estate would be in order to assess and know how to proceed.

The investigation and pursuit of this case would be done on an hourly fee if you wish to retain me.