Intestacy

Question 1

If no kids, no parents

Answer 1

SS gets everything

Question 2

If no SS, no issue

Answer 2

Surviving parents take in equal shares

Question 3

If no SS, no issue, no parents

Answer 3

Then decedent’s siblings, and issue of his siblings take in equal shares

Question 4

If no SS, no kids, no parents, no siblings

Answer 4

Then it goes to surviving grandparents

Question 5

Remote relatives

Answer 5

No inheritance is permitted by relatives more remote than the children of grandparents and their children

Question 6

If no kids, yes parents

Answer 6

SS gets first $30,000 of the estate + 1/2 of the balance (the other 1/2 goes to parents)

Question 7

If yes kids:

Answer 7

(that are also SS’ kids)

• SS gets first $30,000 + 1/2 of the balance (other 1/2 goes to kids)

(if Kids are not SS’s kids)

• SS gets 1/2 of the estate and the kids split the other 1/2

Question 8

Per Capita By Right of Representation Distribution

Answer 8

Go to level closest to testator where someone is alive and the divide property equally number of people living at level and those who have predeceased but left issue

Question 9

Adopted Children

Answer 9

In PA, they’re considered children of their adopted parents; they’re treated as natural children

Question 9

Stepchildren

Answer 9

• Have no right to receive a share of decedent’s estate
• EXCEPTION:
  
  • Adoption by estoppel: Can be shown if there is an attempt to adopt that does not occur because of a technical defect, or if the stepparent contracts with the natural parents to adopt the child but for some reason does not

Question 10

Half-Blood

Answer 10

Children who share at least 1 parent in common

Will inherit same share as if they were a full-blooded child

Question 11

Illegitimate Children

Answer 11

• Are considered the child of mother for intestate distribution
• Will be considered the child of the father, IF:
  
  1. Parents marry during parent’s lifetime
  2. Father openly holds child out as his own and receives the child into his home
  3. father openly holds the child out to be his and provides support for the child; or
  4. there is clear and convincing evidence that the man was the father of the child; this may include a prior court determination of paternity

Question 12

Posthumous Children

Answer 12

• a child born to the decedent’s widow within 280 days of the decedent’s death is presumed to be the child of the decedent
• Kids born through in vitro fertilization:
  
  • if not born with 280-day limit, they do not take

Question 13

Escheat

Answer 13

If there is no one to inherit under the statute, the property escheats to the Commonwealth of PA