What Are Siblings' Rights After a Parent's Death?

The death of a parent can be emotionally trying, especially if the passing was unexpected. It can also be a test of your patience if there are complicated estate issues to sort out. If you have siblings, for example, there may be questions about who should inherit what. State law can define siblings’ rights after parents’ death. It’s helpful to understand what those may mean for you and your family.

If you’re inheriting a substantial amount of assets, you may consider working with a financial advisor. They can help you create a proper financial plan.

What Are Siblings’ Rights After Parents’ Death?

When a parent passes away leaving multiple children behind, each of them is treated as a sibling for estate planning purposes. Three factors largely determine the extent of their siblings’ rights and what they can inherit:

Whether the deceased parent left behind a will or trust
Whether there is a surviving spouse who can also inherit
State inheritance laws

Siblings’ rights after their parent’s death can include the right to inherit their assets. However, those rights make take a backseat to a surviving spouse’s ability to inherit.

Generally, state inheritance laws give precedence to a surviving spouse ahead of any children. Some states grant children the legal right to inherit their parent’s estate, even if the parent had not included them in their will. However, most states allow parents to exclude children from their will, which can block them from inheriting anything.

How Does a Will Determine Siblings’ Rights After Parents’ Death?

A will is a legal document that allows the will-maker to specify their wishes for the distribution of their assets after their death. If both your parents pass away, their estate would be divided among you and your siblings according to the terms of their will.

There are a variety of ways that parents may choose to divide their estate among siblings. Here are a few examples:

One child gets the house and its contents, while their siblings split any remaining assets in the estate.
The executor sells the home and its contents. They then split the proceeds of the sale equally among the siblings.
Each sibling receives specific property or assets from the estate that have equal value.
One child receives the entire contents of the parent’s estate, to the exclusion of all other siblings.

Note that those examples assume that both parents have passed away. In situations where there is a surviving spouse, the division of assets might look very different.

For instance, the surviving spouse might be the sole inheritor under the terms of the will. In that case, the siblings would receive nothing from the deceased parent’s estate during the surviving spouse’s lifetime. However, they may still inherit when the surviving spouse passes away if there are any remaining assets.

Estate planning can get even more complicated when siblings do not all share the same parents. For example, if your father divorced your mother and remarried in midlife, then their will might also have to account for any additional children they had with their new spouse. Whether those half-siblings receive the same inheritance rights as you will depend on your state’s inheritance laws.

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Siblings’ Rights When a Parent Dies Intestate

A father and daughter going over the father's estate plan.

Dying intestate means dying without a valid will in place. When a parent passes away without a will, state inheritance laws determine who gets what from the estate.

State inheritance laws typically have a “pecking order,” which prioritizes certain inheritors ahead of others. For example, New York probate law assigns the first $50,000 in assets, plus half of the remaining assets, to the surviving spouse first. The remainder goes to any children who stand to inherit. If there is no spouse, the siblings inherit everything.

Under state inheritance laws, siblings are treated equally. This means sany assets in the estate would be shared equally. If you and your siblings would prefer a different distribution of assets, that’s something you’d have to work out among yourselves after the estate is settled.

Are Siblings Entitled to See a Will or Trust?

You might assume that you and your siblings have an equal right to see your parents’ will or trust after they’ve passed away. However, most states limit the viewing of the will and trust documents to persons named as beneficiaries.

If your parent’s will or trust does not list you or your siblings as a beneficiary, then you don’t have an automatic right to review those documents. That can be problematic if one sibling receives the bulk of the parent’s estate.

In that scenario, it may be advisable to have an estate planning attorney or probate attorney step in. An attorney can advise you of your rights, including what options you might have if you’d like to see the will or contest its terms.

Can a Sibling Take Your Inheritance?

If a parent passes away with a valid will or trust in place, then the terms of either one must be upheld. That means a sibling technically would not be able to legally take assets that belong to you under your parent’s estate plan.

However, it’s possible that a sibling could attempt to challenge the validity of the will or the distribution of assets. A sibling would need to have a valid claim to challenge a will in probate court. For example, if they’re claiming the parent made the will under duress, then they’d need to have evidence of that.

A sibling could also petition the court to ask for a larger share of the estate if they believe they’re entitled to it. If one of your siblings, for example, was the primary caregiver for your parents in their final years and also provided them with financial support, they could ask the court to take that into consideration.

If you find yourself in a situation where a sibling is contesting your parent’s will or you believe you have a claim to contest it, talking to an estate planning attorney can help you figure out the next steps. An estate planning attorney can weigh the merits of the claim and help you to mount a defense, if necessary.

Financial Advisor Services for Inheritance and Examples

Inheritance disputes among siblings rarely come down to a single rule. They usually hinge on a variety of factors, including the will, state law, a surviving spouse and the personal history between family members.

Below are five common scenarios that siblings run into after a parent’s death, and how a financial advisor can help with each one.

What Are Siblings’ Rights After Parents’ Death?

Siblings’ inheritance rights depend on whether a will or trust exists, whether there is a surviving spouse and what state law dictates. A surviving spouse typically takes priority over children, which can leave siblings with nothing until that spouse also passes away.

How an advisor can help? A financial advisor can walk siblings through what a surviving spouse’s priority actually means in dollar terms, help them understand what, if anything, they’re likely to eventually inherit and factor that timeline into their own retirement or savings plans rather than assuming an inheritance is imminent.
Example: Two siblings, Mark and Julie, lose their father. Their stepmother is still alive, and the will leaves the bulk of the estate to her, with only a small keepsake fund set aside for the children. Julie assumes she’s entitled to half of everything, but because state law and the will both prioritize the surviving spouse, she and Mark may receive nothing further until the stepmother later passes.

How Does a Will Determine Siblings’ Rights After Parents’ Death?

A will sets the terms for the division of a parent’s estate. Parents have significant flexibility in how they split assets among children, sometimes unevenly, based on their own reasoning.

How an advisor can help? An advisor can help appraise the actual value of what each sibling received and run the numbers to see whether the split was truly unequal or just looked that way on paper. From there, they can help siblings decide whether adjustments, like one sibling buying out part of another’s share, make sense financially for everyone involved.
Example: A mother’s will states that her house goes to her daughter, who lives nearby and helped care for her. Meanwhile, her two sons are to split the remaining investment accounts equally. The daughter didn’t expect the house, and now the sons feel the house is worth more than their combined share.

What Are Siblings’ Rights When a Parent Dies Intestate?

Without a will, state intestacy laws determine the division of assets. These laws generally treat siblings equally regardless of their individual circumstances or contributions.

How an advisor can help? Since intestate succession splits assets equally regardless of individual circumstances, an advisor can help a sibling who provided care for the parent understand their options, including whether a claim for reimbursement or a larger share might be worth pursuing. They also can help structure the division of inherited assets to ensure they are divided or liquidated fairly among everyone involved.
Example: A father dies without a will, leaving three adult children and no surviving spouse. Under his state’s intestacy laws, all three children inherit equally. However, one sibling had been living with their father and paying his bills for years, while the other two were largely absent.

Are Siblings Entitled to See a Will or Trust?

Most states limit access to a will or trust to those actually named as beneficiaries. This means a sibling left out of the document has no automatic right to review it.

How an advisor can help? A financial advisor won’t have legal authority to obtain the will. However, they can help someone in this position understand what financial documentation they can request once distributions begin. The advisor can also flag any discrepancies between what’s promised and what’s actually received.
Example: A woman’s father passes away, and her brother, who is named executor, tells her the will divides everything equally. She wasn’t listed as a beneficiary, so she has no legal right to see the document herself. Instead, she simply has to take her brother’s word for it.

Can a Sibling Take Your Inheritance?

A valid will or trust generally must be honored, but siblings can still challenge its validity or petition for a larger share under certain circumstances. This can delay distribution for everyone involved.

How an advisor can help? An advisor can help a sibling who isn’t contesting the will understand how a legal challenge might delay their inheritance. They can help them plan their finances around that uncertainty in the meantime and prepare financially for either outcome once the court resolves the contest.
Example: A woman’s brother contests their mother’s will after learning she left most of her estate to her daughter. She argues their mother wasn’t of sound mind when she signed it. The legal process for the challenge freezes the entire estate while deciding the contest.

Bottom line

Siblings’ rights after parents’ death can be tricky to navigate, especially when there isn’t a will or estate plan in place. You may be unsure of what rights you have and how to exercise them. Being proactive and talking to your parents about their estate plan can help you and your siblings avoid conflict when it’s time to divide up their assets.

Estate Planning Tips

Consider talking to your financial advisor about how to manage an inheritance from your parents. Your advisor can help you figure out a strategy for making the most of any assets you inherit. If you don’t have a financial advisor yet, finding one doesn’t have to be difficult. SmartAsset’s free tool financial advisor matching tool makes it easy to connect with professional advisors in your local area. It takes just a few minutes to get your personalized advisor recommendations online, get started now.
While you’re helping your parents with their estate plan, consider giving some thought to your own. Drafting a will is a good place to start, especially if you have young children for whom you’d like to name a guardian. You might also weigh the benefits of establishing trust. A trust allows you to transfer assets to a trustee, who is responsible for managing them according to your wishes. You could hire an estate planning attorney to help you create these documents or do it yourself using an affordable online software.