Legal Question in Family Law in Pennsylvania

Re: Disown a daughter

The first part is easy enough for a competent attorney to help you with. This question suggests that you don't have an estate plan. Anyone with a family must have an estate plan as a responsible adult. Even people with small estates should have an estate plan (at least a will). This minimizes the suffering and acrimony of those you leave behind. It allows you to direct your legacy. People without wills or estate plans have a good portion of their assets taken by the state, then it falls to probate to determine who gets what part of your residual estate. This rarely falls with the wishes of the decedent.

So in order to chart the destiny of your estate you must have an estate plan which at a minum consists of four basic documents, the most significant of which is a will.

But there is nothing you can do about the second part. Once you give a child a name at birth it is theirs to keep. Even if it were otherwise, upon reaching the age of majority, a person can change their own name to whatever their hearts desires.

As to creating an estate plan, essentially to disown and disih=nhereit your daughter. I would be willing to help you with that. Of course I, or any other attorney, will encourage you to not only reconsider but also to probably include either conditional entitlements in your will pertaining to her. Or most effectively, to include her with only a nominal award. That assures that she wasn't excluded from your estate in error but that it was an intentional act.

Please contact me to arrange an appointment to go over this matter. When get in in touch I will let you know what documents and information that needs to be gathered to make this matter go most quickly.

Regards,

Roger Traversa

eMail: [email protected]