Intestate Inheritance Rights for Adopted Children - Missouri

Birth Parents in Relation to Adopted Person

Citation: Ann. Stat. §§ 453.090; 474.060

When a child is adopted, all legal relationships and all rights and duties between such child and his or her birth parents shall cease.

If, for purposes of intestate succession, a relationship of parent and child must be established to determine succession by, through, or from a person, an adopted person is the child of an adopting parent and not of the birth parents, except that adoption of a child by the spouse of a birth parent has no effect on the relationship between the child and such birth parent.

Adoptive Parents in Relation to Adopted Person

Citation: Ann. Stat. §§ 453.090; 453.150

When a child is adopted, he or she shall be capable of inheriting from his or her parent(s) by adoption as fully as though born to them. The parent(s) by adoption shall be capable of inheriting from their adopted child as fully as though such child had been born to them. The adopted child shall be capable of inheriting from or taking through his or her parent(s) by adoption property limited expressly to heirs of the body of such parent(s) by adoption.

Any person adopted by deed of adoption or agreement of adoption in writing prior to 1917 shall hereafter be deemed and held to be for every purpose the child of his or her parent(s) by adoption as fully as though born to them in lawful wedlock, and such adoption shall have the same force and effect as an adoption under the provisions of this chapter, including all inheritance rights.

Adopted Persons Who Are Not Included in a Will

Citation: Ann. Stat. §§ 474.240; 474.435

If a testator fails to provide in his or her will for any child who was adopted after the execution of his or her will, the omitted child receives a share in the estate equal in value to that which he or she would have received if the testator had died intestate, unless:

• It appears from the will that the omission was intentional.
• When the will was executed, the testator had one or more children and gave substantially all his or her estate to the other parent of the omitted child.
• The testator provided for the child by transfer outside the will with the intent that the transfer be in lieu of a testamentary provision.

Adopted persons are included in class gift terminology and terms of relationship in accordance with rules for determining relationships for purposes of intestate succession.