Step-Parent Wants to Exclude Step-Child from Inheritance

[PedHitByTruck]

I am a 56 year old single woman. My mother divorced my birth father when I was 2 & remarried when I was 4, and they had two children together. This second husband has been a real treat - domestic violence, (this was in the 1950's - 1970's) so nothing was ever done, alcoholic, liar, and has hated me for the past 52 years. He's a real loser, worked 12 years for GMAC and was fired. That was his total job history. When he was fired my mother took over the management of an apartment complex that she and her two sisters owned, and has supported them since 1977. My Mother and her lovely husband have accumulated a nice little estate, of around $1M. (using my mother & deceased grandmother's assets). They both have wills, but I have no idea how the assets are to be divided. I do know, when they created the wills, that my Mother said 'he' was going to include me in his will, because my birth father was never in my life. I have just learned that was a lie, and he has a plan to exclude me from any assets if my mother dies first. He plans on destroying his will after my Mother dies, and will die intestate. Since I was only 4 when they married, when I started school at 6, they just used his last name, and when I turned 16, they had my name 'legally' changed to his last name, but I was never adopted. I am assuming that if my dear mother dies first, and he pulls this stunt, that I am not considered his heir, because I was never adopted. Is that correct? I don't really need the money, it's just another stick in the eye from HIM. North Carolina.

[Mr. Knowitall]

Your mother needs to take the initiative here, and consult an estate planning lawyer about setting up an estate plan that he cannot void after her death.

[525601minutes]

... if she wants to guarantee that any or all of her assets go to you instead of her husband. If she leaves everything to him then it is completely within his rights to exclude you or not as he sees fit.