Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Virginia

There are several ways that the son's name could be "on" the deed, so this is not automatically clear.

For example, if the father and the son own the house jointly as co-tenants or joint tenants, then when the father dies, the wife would take the father's half. So then the mother would own half and the son would own half. The mother would take the place of the father.

Or, to be more precise, the father's half would be governed by the father's WILL. I am assuming that the father's will leaves his property to his wife, which is normal.

If he has no will, then it gets complicated BECAUSE I am guessing that the son is a child of a previous marriage. (You say it is a 3 year marriage and very few 3-year old sons are on deeds of houses. So I am assuming the son is from a prevoius marriage.) In that case, his wife would divide the father's share with the children of the previous marriage.

Obviously, if the father wants the wife to have 1/2 of the house, he needs to write a will that says this.

If two people are named together with no explanation, the default is that they are co-tenants and each own 1/2 (if there are two people).

However, if the deed is written "transfer on death" or "joint tenants with right of survivorship" then the son would automatically own the house 100% if the father dies.

So it depends on what the deed actually says.