Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in North Carolina

It depends. You do not indicate when your grandparents died, if they had a will, where they lived at the time of their deaths or how you are related to your grandparents and why you would be a beneficiary.

People do not have to leave anything to their children or grandchildren. So if your grandparents had wills leaving the property to someone other than you, then no, you have no right to inherit. It would only be where you either were specifically named or where assets were left to "my children and their issue" or words of similar import. You also might stand to inherit either because the property was left to a parent of yours who died or under the intestacy laws if your grandparents had no will.

What you need to do is contact the probate court in the county where your grandparents resided. Since you claim their estates were settled, then there should be estate files for your grandparents. You need to look at both files to see where the property went when the first grandparent died and then where it went when the second died. You need to see if you are listed as a beneficiary in any will. If there is no will, then you need to see what the state intestacy laws say, if anything, about inheritance by children born out of wedlock. Some states have abolished the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate children, but if you are claiming to inherit by a lapsed gift to your father, then paternity would need to be established in some fashion if your grandparents lived in NC. In some states like Georgia, an illegitimate child could not inherit from his father (or by extension from his father's parents) unless the father legitimated the child.

You will probably need to see a probate attorney in the county/state where your grandparens resided once you have a copy of the wills, inventory and accounting in order to know if you would inherit or not.