An estranged adult child may be upset by the decision and could potentially challenge an estate plan. For that reason, careful drafting and professional legal advice are especially important when disinheritance is being considered.
How Estrangement Typically Happens
It is worth pausing here to acknowledge the emotional reality of this situation, because the question of inheritance cannot be separated from the larger experience of estrangement itself. Parent-child estrangement can arise from accumulated misunderstandings, unresolved conflicts, different values or life choices, second marriages, in-law tensions, or the gradual divergence of two people who once shared a home.
Some estrangements are initiated by the child; others by the parent. Many involve no clear villain and no single defining moment — just a gradual withdrawal of contact until the absence becomes the normal state of things.
For the parent left behind, the grief can be real and deeply painful. Parents experiencing estrangement may describe
