Wealthy fathers with unrecognised children: watch out!

Published by: Fabrizia de Wit-Facchetti posted on 12 February 2016 reading time

When a child is born outside of a marriage (or registered partnership), the law states that a child only has a legal father if the father acknowledges the child at the municipality. Also when paternity is established by the court, a child has a legal father. Legal paternity means, among other things, that the child is the heir of the father.

Many fathers do not realise that children not recognised by them can still present themselves as heirs after the father's death. With the help of the procedure for establishing paternity, the non-recognised children can even enforce recognition through the courts after the father's death. Biological kinship, often demonstrated by the child concerned with a DNA test, is the only legal requirement. Good contact between child and father is irrelevant.

If the request is granted by the court, the child then shares in the father's inheritance, together with any other heirs. If father did not make any provisions in his will during his lifetime, this may mean in practice that after the death of father, a number of children suddenly appear who claim to be children of the testator. The fact that the presence of an extensive inheritance has become known can, of course, play a part in this. Sometimes, an exhumation of the testator is even ordered in order to be able to carry out a DNA test.
There is no time limit for initiating proceedings to establish paternity. Heirs of the father therefore have to take into account for years the possible claim of unrecognised children.
This is often a heavy burden for them: in addition to the death of their loved one, they see part of their inheritance disappear to a child who was not recognised as such during the life of the deceased.

Fathers can partly avoid this, for example by making a will during their lifetime in which they name their heirs. The claim of any unrecognised child is thus limited to the legitimate portion, which is half of the normal inheritance.

For questions concerning judicial establishment of paternity, please contact our family law specialists.