Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in North Carolina

Just so I get this - you had another child who was born during your marriage to wife 1 and you later found out child is not yours. You then married wife 2 and have a new family with her.

First, since the child was born during marriage to wife 1, you are the presumed biological father of child from marriage 1 and you cannot just unilaterally take your name off the birth certificate. You could only do that if the child's real father appeared and there was a court order adjudicating him to be the child's biological father and then a new birth certificate would be issued with his name instead of yours.

There is a very simple solution here and your second wife is being stupid about it. There is no way that you can just take your name off the birth certificate as I have explained. And your biological child cannot sign anything waiving her rights of inheritance because you are still alive and we do not know what you will own at the time of your death or how it will be titled. Many things pass outside of probate (joint bank accounts or life insurance or jointly owned real property with a right of survivorship). All these kinds of property pass outside any probate and your biological child would not be able to claim a share of any of these things if she is not the named beneficiary.

Having non-probate assets is what is known as poor man's estate planning. Its not always a sure-fire thing because you are alive and may acquire other assets and there is no idea what you will have at the time of your death. Also, if you died because of negligence or wrongdoing of another and your estate recovered money, your child from marriage 1 would be entitled to a share of it.

The only way to make sure that she gets nothing, if that is what you want to do, is that you need to make a will and specifically disinherit child from first marriage. There is no right of a child to inherit from its parent at all. If you do this properly by having a will drafted by a lawyer, there is nothing she can do. If you feel like doing something for the child anyway and do not want your wife to find out, buy a small life insurance policy on your life and make the child the beneficiary of the policy. The child will then inherit once you are dead and your wife never has to know.

I do wills and trusts and could draft one for you for a reasonable fee. Please contact me at [email protected] if you are interested.