Disinheritance: A Guide to Removing Someone From Your Will
A Step-by-Step Guide
Last Updated: April 03, 2025
Written by
Key Takeaways:
- Disinheritance allows you to choose not to leave an inheritance to someone, leaving them no part of your estate after your death.
- You might not be able to completely disinherit certain family members, like spouses and children.
- Knowing your state’s estate laws and proper execution of your Will are the keys to successfully disinheriting an heir.
Table of Contents
- What does disinheriting someone mean?
- Why would I choose to disinherit someone?
- Factors to consider when disinheriting someone
- Can I disinherit my spouse?
- Can I disinherit my children?
- Who else can I disinherit from my estate?
- How do I disinherit someone?
- What are some alternatives to disinheriting?
- Protecting your legacy
Your estate is your legacy, and in most cases, it’s entirely up to you where it goes. As you decide who will inherit your assets, there could be certain family members you want to leave out of your Last Will. Disinheriting them lets you protect and preserve your estate.
However, estate law is complicated and can create barriers to a successful disinheritance. Some relatives have automatic inheritance rights, someone can contest and invalidate your Will, or the probate court can choose to overturn your decisions.
In other words, there’s great importance in the details when you disinherit someone. Read on to understand who you can disinherit, how to do it legally, and what risks you might run into in the process.
What does disinheriting someone mean?
Disinheriting someone means you don’t leave them anything from your estate in your Last Will and Testament. By choosing not to give them an inheritance, you prevent them from getting any assets or property after you pass away. In many cases, disinheritance comes down to protecting your estate and assets.
When you disinherit someone, it’s vital to do it correctly. Your state’s estate laws might limit who you can leave out of your will, and if you disinherit someone incorrectly, they might receive assets meant for others.
Why would I choose to disinherit someone?
There are a wide variety of reasons for disinheriting someone. There might be a lack of trust or relationship, an ongoing conflict in the family, or you might want to leave all of your estate to a single family member who requires more support.
No matter the reason, it doesn’t impact your ability to disinherit someone. Your estate is yours to direct as you wish, and you can disinherit most people regardless of motivation. However, certain relatives have legal rights to your estate, and you won’t be able to fully disinherit them. Ask a lawyer for guidance on your specific circumstances and whether you will be able to completely disinherit someone.
In your Will, you can choose to state why you’ve chosen to disinherit someone, but this is optional. You don’t actually have to give a reason. In fact, explaining why someone is no longer an heir might actually give ammunition to a potential challenge.
However, you need to clearly state the disinheritance. This means that your Will can’t be misinterpreted when you’re no longer around to clarify it. It also proves that disinheritance is not an accident and that you haven’t simply forgotten to name someone as your beneficiary.
Factors to consider when disinheriting someone
Several factors can lead to a Will being fully or partially overturned. These factors are especially important to consider when disinheriting someone, as the person you remove from your Will might be looking to challenge your decisions.
When navigating something as complicated as disinheritance, speak with a lawyer to ensure you take the necessary steps. An estate attorney can warn you of potential complications and help guide you through the legal process.
Here are some factors that can hinder or complicate a disinheritance:
Probate
Most estates have to go through probate. It’s a standard legal process that authenticates your Will and starts the distribution of your estate. As a part of probate, a judge will assess the legitimacy of your Will, to ensure it’s valid and properly executed.
Assets that have to go through probate include personal property, personal bank accounts, and any real estate in your name. Some assets, like those in a Living Trust or under joint ownership with the right of survivorship, don’t have to go through probate.
If the probate judge finds your Will to be invalid, they'll resort to intestate succession to distribute your estate. In other words, you'll have no say in how your assets are distributed. This is more likely to happen if you don't follow the correct protocols when creating your Will.
| Learn more about the probate process with this article: Understanding Probate: Insights into the Legal |
Contesting
There’s also the risk that someone might contest your Will. The person you disinherit can petition the probate court to invalidate all or parts of the Will. If the challenge is valid, the court will arrange for an additional hearing to explore and evaluate the claims.
The person contesting must be someone with legal standing, meaning they must stand to gain from the Will being overturned. Depending on your state’s estate laws, the people who can sue for inheritance might include:
- Beneficiaries in the current will
- Beneficiaries in another will (previous or newer versions)
- Anyone who would inherit under intestacy laws if the will were invalid
- Other interested parties, such as creditors
In most cases, contesting is about proving that the Will is somehow invalid. Your heirs can’t simply challenge your decisions because they disagree with how you divided your assets. The court will only accept a challenge if there’s clear legal ground.
Grounds for challenging or invalidating a Will
A Will can usually only be challenged or invalidated if there’s solid evidence that it’s not legally valid. Suspicion alone won’t be enough to overturn it, and there has to be plenty of proof to support a challenge.
These are some of the grounds that can overturn or invalidate your Will in probate court:
- Lack of required formalities, such as not signing with witnesses
- Lack of testamentary capacity, meaning you didn’t know what you were signing, didn’t understand the extent of your estate or the consequences of your dispositions, or you based your decisions on a delusion
- Undue influence, where someone forced or compelled you to change your Will against your genuine wishes
- Fraud or forgery, meaning someone faked or tampered with your Will
- Multiple Wills, where the court can’t tell which Will reflects your genuine intentions
If your Will is overturned in court based on any of these grounds, your estate could be deemed intestate. This means that your Will won’t decide where your assets go, and succession will instead follow intestate laws. A lawyer can help you take steps to make your Will harder to contest.
Can I disinherit my spouse?
Spousal disinheritance is complex. Estate laws often protect surviving spouses from being disinherited completely, meaning you might not be able to prevent your husband or wife from inheriting.
In many cases, your spouse will have rights to portions of both your shared and personal property. These rights might overrule the instructions you outline in your Will. Some states, like Florida, also have homestead rights, where your spouse or children inherit your residence even if you leave it to someone else.
The legal status of your relationship also impacts spousal inheritance. Separation and divorce can change the surviving spouse’s rights. In most cases, divorced spouses don’t have inheritance rights.
Protection for separated spouses depends on whether your state recognizes legal separation. If your state grants legal separation, a separated spouse will usually be treated as if you’re divorced. However, if you live in a state where there’s no legal separation, your spouse will still have a claim on your estate after you separate.
In other words, until you finalize a divorce, an ex-spouse might be able to inherit, even if you disinherit them.
Partners in a domestic or common law relationship have different inheritance rights from married couples. Some states allow legal registration for domestic partnerships, and in these states, domestic partners have more rights to inheritances.
| To learn more about the legal rights of |
In order to have more of a say in what your spouse can inherit, consider creating and signing a Prenuptial or Postnuptial Agreement. These documents will outline what assets your spouse has the right to receive after you pass. Domestic partners can use a Cohabitation Agreement.
There are two standard approaches to how a state might afford a share of your estate to your surviving spouse. Consult your local legislation to understand how your state divides marital property.
1. The elective share approach
The elective share approach gives the surviving spouse a fixed fraction of the estate. Even if the surviving spouse is disinherited, the elective share can let them “take against the will”. To receive their elective share, spouses must file a claim with the probate court within a set time limit. Couples who don’t wish to claim elective shares can waive their rights with Prenuptial or Postnuptial Agreements.
The amount of the elective share is set out in the state’s legislation and can depend on various factors. For example:
- In North Carolina, the elective share varies based on how long the couple was married.
- Illinois’ elective share will be one-third of the estate if the testator has a child or grandchild. If there’s no direct descendant, the spouse receives half of the estate.
- New York lets a surviving spouse receive the greater of up to $50,000 or one-third of the estate.
Some states calculate the elective share from the probate estate. The share will be taken from property that goes through probate, such as personal property and bank accounts. This means that the elective share can potentially be made smaller by moving assets into Living Trusts and payable on death accounts.
However, most states have changed their elective share legislation to protect spouses from being completely disinherited. These jurisdictions calculate the share using both probate and non-probate property. This 'augmented estate' allows the surviving spouse more security. Consult your local probate code to understand how your state calculates the elective share.
2. The community property approach
In some states, everything a couple acquires during a marriage counts as community property. This means all the marital property is shared between spouses, regardless of who bought it or whose name is on the registration. For example, if your wife buys a car, you automatically own half of it.
The community property states are:
- Arizona
- California
- Idaho
- Louisiana
- Nevada
- New Mexico
- Texas
- Washington
- Wisconsin
| Read more about community property and Community Property States: What You |
If you live in a community property state, you and your spouse both own half of the marital property. The surviving spouse will keep their portion of the shared property after you pass. The other half is yours to distribute as you choose.
Your spouse also won’t have rights to any separate property, such as things you earned before the marriage. Unless your Will gets overturned in probate court, you can divide these assets as you wish. Additionally, you and your spouse can use Prenuptial or Postnuptial Agreements to exclude certain property from the community property pool.
Prenups and Postnups in estate planning
Prenuptial and Postnuptial Agreements are essential to defining your spouse’s inheritance. These vital documents let you and your spouse clarify the property, assets, and debts that are separately owned or shared during and after marriage. The surviving spouse will receive only what the Will and agreement provide.
Unmarried couples can create a Cohabitation Agreement to serve a similar purpose to a pre- or postnup.
Can I disinherit my children?
The inheritance rights of children depend on jurisdiction and the child’s age. Estate laws usually protect minor children from being disinherited. Because you have a legal duty to care for your underage kids, probate court might overturn or invalidate a Will that disinherits a minor child. The same sometimes goes for dependent adults, but you should check your state’s laws to fully understand the specific requirements.
Once your kids reach the age of majority, you no longer have to provide for them and can choose to disinherit them. While they can sometimes contest your Will if they’re not included as a beneficiary, the petition might not succeed.
If you’re disinheriting a child without clearly stating it, and you’ve left inheritances to all your other children, a judge might assume they were accidentally left out and overturn your disinheritance. This is why, if you’re purposely disinheriting one of your children, you should clearly and explicitly state it.
It’s important to remember that, even if you explicitly disinherit your child, that doesn’t equal disinheriting any of their children. Your grandchild will still count as a direct heir and might still have a legal right to inherit, depending on your state’s succession laws. If you want to disinherit an entire branch of your family, including your child and their children, you have to make this explicitly clear in your Will.
Forced heirship
Louisiana is the only state that has a forced heirship law to ensure that children who meet certain criteria receive a minimum share of the estate. A child who is under the age of 24 or who isn’t able to care for themselves for reasons like disability or illness has the right to inherit up to 25% of your estate.
Forced heirs can also be disinherited, but only for any of the reasons explicitly stated in §161 of the Louisiana Civil Code.
Who else can I disinherit from my estate?
Except for spouses and children, you can more or less disinherit anyone. Usually, you won’t even have to mention them in your Will to prevent them from inheriting if they don’t have legal rights to a share.
However, someone you mentioned in a previous Will might be able to contest if you remove them later. If the challenge is successful, they can potentially receive the items you left them in the previous Will. In these cases, you should clearly state that you no longer want them to inherit anything from your estate. This helps inform the probate judge and your executor that the disinheritance was not accidental.
Can I disinherit my parents?
Parents don’t have rights in estate laws, meaning they’re not entitled to parts of your estate when you have a Will. In most cases, your parents won’t inherit anything from you, unless you designate it in your Will.
However, if you have no other next of kin, such as a spouse or children, your parents might be next in the line of succession. In this case, you should include other beneficiaries to avoid your parents inheriting anything from your estate.
Can I disinherit extended relatives?
Yes, you can disinherit relatives like aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins. Your extended relatives don’t have a right to inherit anything from your estate if you don't include them in your Will. In most cases, you don’t have to disinherit them to prevent them from receiving portions of your assets.
Still, if your extended relatives are your closest next of kin and your Will is overturned, they’re likely to inherit your estate. To avoid this, you should make sure your Will is up to date and executed properly, and that you designate your assets to other beneficiaries.
How do I disinherit someone?
The main priority when disinheriting someone is to be clear and concise. Ambiguities in a Will can make probate take longer and can even make a contest more likely to succeed. Be aware of your state's legislation and reach out to an estate lawyer for help when navigating a disinheritance.
There are two ways to go about disinheriting someone. The first is to exclude them from your Will by not mentioning them at all. This is the easiest method, and it works well if the person isn’t legally entitled to receiving anything from your estate.
The other method is to include an explicit disinheritance clause in your Last Will. This clause needs to clearly and undeniably state that the person is disinherited and won’t receive anything from your estate. A disinheritance clause is especially important if the person you’re disinheriting has some claim to your estate, like if they were a beneficiary in a previous Will.
1. Create your Will
Because disinheritance is a major change, you can’t just update your existing Will. Instead, you should create a new one. To avoid confusion, you’ll need to explicitly revoke any prior documents in your new Will.
| LawDepot’s Last Will and Testament template automatically Create your Will today with our easy-to-use questionnaire. |
2. Write your disinheritance clause
You need to communicate the disinheritance clearly, as vague or confusing wordings can lead to your Will being misunderstood or overturned. Some of the things you might want to mention in the disinheritance clause include:
- The heir’s name and their relationship to you
- That you’re disinheriting them
- That the disinheritance is intentional
- That they won’t receive any assets from your estate
A sample disinheritance clause can look like this:
| “I have intentionally disinherited my son, William, and excluded him from my Last Will and Testament. He will not receive any assets from my estate or any portion of my estate. I have made this decision freely and voluntarily, without any undue influence or coercion.” |
In some cases, you might feel like explaining the disinheritance. And while you don't have to state your reasoning for removing an heir from your Will, you can choose to do so. Including a brief and reasonable reason for the disinheritance can provide evidence of your capacity and context for the decision.
If you do include an explanation for the disinheritance, you might consider documenting your decision-making process. Proper documentation of your reasoning could help prove that the disinheritance was a choice you made yourself, with full testamentary capacity.
However, there are also risks when sharing your thought process around the disinheritance. Your Will becomes public during probate, and you may not want to include intimate details of any family conflicts. Additionally, your reason could give a potential challenge more grounds if it:
- Violates public policy
- Demonstrates a misunderstanding
- Is unduly harsh
- Shows a lack of capacity
Louisiana residents need to be aware that they must state a reason in their Will to legally disinherit a child. The reason should be one of the causes listed in the Louisiana Civil Code.
Seek legal advice when writing your disinheritance clause. Local laws might have specific requirements for wording, and an estate lawyer can help you navigate legislation that impacts your specific circumstances.
3. Clearly designate other beneficiaries
As you’re writing your new Will, make sure all your assets go to the correct beneficiaries. Pay extra attention to re-assigning assets that previously would have gone to the disinherited person.
4. Update and maintain your estate plans
Remember to update and maintain your estate plan after big life events like marriage, divorce, birth or adoption of a child, and family deaths. Small changes to your Will can be made using a Codicil, while major life changes usually require an entirely new Will.
5. Consider communicating your decision
Depending on your situation, you might want to communicate the disinheritance to someone. If the disinheritance is amicable, open communication can help avoid shock and upset when your Will is made public. For example, if you’re leaving one child out of the Will because another child will need more support after you pass, you might inform your heirs of this choice.
On the other hand, explaining your choices can also cause more conflict within the family. If you’re disinheriting a sibling because you don’t believe they are financially responsible, telling them is probably not the best idea. Consider your personal circumstances to decide what is right for you.
One person you should inform is your executor. This is the person who will be carrying out your decisions after you pass. Telling them about the disinheritance can help prepare them for the outcome, and can also help document your reasoning and prove clarity of mind.
What are some alternatives to disinheriting?
Disinheritance can be stressful and taxing for both you and your heirs. If you’re worried that a disinheritance won’t be the best choice for your estate, here are some options you can consider instead:
Lifetime gifts
Leaving your loved ones gifts while you’re alive can help avoid situations of disinheritance. Because you can personally direct where your assets go without having to rely on your Last Will, you have more control of your estate. Gifting your property while you’re alive will also help avoid those specific assets going through probate.
Giving away portions of your estate before you pass also means there will be less estate taxes applicable to the assets you do leave in your Will. In certain cases, you might still have to pay gift taxes.
When you give away larger parts of your estate, it might be helpful to record the transfer of assets. A Gift Deed lets you legally document your decision to give away real estate, property, or money. Whether the gift is immediate or delayed, the deed helps legally establish and document your intention to give something away.
No-contest clauses
A no-contest clause discourages heirs from challenging the Will. If an heir contests the Will and loses, the clause revokes their intended inheritance. This means an heir risks inheriting nothing at all.
In a case of complete disinheritance, a no-contest clause won’t help. However, you can also partially disinherit someone, leaving them a smaller portion of assets instead of removing them completely. With a partial disinheritance, a no-contest clause can help you potentially avoid them contesting the will.
No-contest clauses are valid in most states. However, state legislation varies, and some jurisdictions might restrict or prohibit them. For example, Florida won’t enforce no-contest clauses at all. Other states, like California, enforce no-contest clauses only if a challenge doesn’t have probable cause.
When you use LawDepot’s template to create your Will, it includes a no-contest clause for states where it’s legally applicable.
Trusts
A Living Trust is a good choice when you’re looking to have more control over your estate. As an alternative to disinheritance, it allows you to leave assets to your heir with certain conditions. This way, you can control the flow of money, rather than giving the beneficiary the freedom to spend it how they wish.
For example, say you’re worried about a young heir spending all their inheritance frivolously. You can name a trustee to ensure your heir only gets a small amount of money at a time, or set milestones for when they’ll receive it. Alternatively, you can also specify what the money will be used for, such as directly paying for school or healthcare.
In addition, a Living Trust lets you:
- Avoid probate, allowing for easier transfer of assets
- Ensure privacy, as the trust won’t be a public record
- Protect your interests and possessions with the help of your trustee
- Use a Pour-Over Will to transfer any missed property into your trust upon your death
Trusts might not suit every estate. Seek advice from a lawyer to see if a Living Trust is right for you.
| Learn more about how trusts can help you in your |
Protecting your legacy
Disinheritance is a complicated choice, both emotionally and legally. Whether you’re looking to completely or partially disinherit someone, only you can know what is right for you and your estate. As you make your decisions, an estate lawyer can help guide you through the barriers of local laws and legal requirements.
One of the most important steps you can take to protect your legacy is to regularly update your Will and other estate documents throughout your life. Changes to your family, assets, or health can impact your estate, and it’s vital that you keep your plans up-to-date.
All your estate documents in one place
Use LawDepot’s Estate Vault to manage your estate. With all your vital documents in one place, you can easily update your estate plan and share it with your loved ones.
Visit our Estate Vault
Related Articles
