Abstract
Today in the United States, thousands of grandparents are raising their young grandchildren because the children's parents are ill, disabled, imprisoned, or otherwise unable to care for them. Although most grandparents assume the arrangement is temporary, and thus no courts or social service agencies are involved, in fact more than forty percent of the time the care continues for five years or more. If the grandparent dies intestate, laws in all fifty states provide that the grandchild's absent parent inherits all. The grandchild, although raised as a child of the grandparent, inherits nothing. This Article examines existing doctrines, such as equitable adoption and pretermitted child statutes, and policies adopted in other countries, such as family maintenance systems, and their effects on the grandchildren. In the end, this Article concludes that the simplest solution of writing a will to avoid intestacy statutes may be the best.
How to Cite
48 Ariz. L. Rev. 1 (2006)
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