Omitted or Pretermitted Children Under Wills in Connecticut
At a glance
| Will and child covered | Later-born/adopted child omitted from will; living child omitted solely from mistaken belief of death (§ 45a-257b(a), (c)). |
|---|---|
| Birth or adoption timing | After execution; expressly includes qualifying assisted-reproduction and postdeath births (§ 45a-257b(a)). |
| Naming and provision test | Will fails to provide for later child; mistaken-death route needs omission solely from that belief (§ 45a-257b(a), (c)). |
| Intentional omission | Later-child share excluded if intentional omission appears from will (§ 45a-257b(b)(1)). |
| Other-parent gifts | No-child-at-execution share excluded if substantially all estate goes to other parent, who survives and can take (§ 45a-257b(a)(1)). |
| Outside gifts and advancements | Outside transfer defeats later-child share if intended in lieu of will gift, shown by statements, amount, or other evidence (§ 45a-257b(b)(2)). |
| Baseline statutory share | No living child at execution: intestate-equivalent value; limited-child-gift exception also uses intestacy (§ 45a-257b(a)(1), (2)(E)). |
| Effect of gifts to existing children | If then-living children receive gifts, omitted child shares equally in those gifts unless will limits them to living children (§ 45a-257b(a)(2)(A)–(E)). |
| Property source and abatement | Existing-child devises/legacies abate ratably; subsection (d) cites § 45a-426 but refers to an exception, leaving its reach unclear (§ 45a-257b(a)(2)(D), (d)). |
| Trust and nonprobate reach | Outside transfer may defeat coverage; existing-child share matches equitable/legal, present/future character where feasible (§ 45a-257b(b)(2), (a)(2)(C)). |
Requirements one by one
Covered child
Section 45a-257b(a) covers a child born or adopted after will execution, expressly including a child born through assisted reproduction as defined in the cited section and a postdeath birth covered by § 45a-785(a). Subsection (c) separately treats a living child omitted solely because the testator believed the child dead as an omitted later child.
Amount and source
Under § 45a-257b(a)(1), a child receives the value of an intestate share when no child was living at execution, subject to its other-parent exception. If then-living children received devises or legacies, subsection (a)(2) ordinarily limits the pool to those gifts, equalizes among included and omitted children, and reduces existing children's gifts ratably. Subsection (a)(2)(E) instead uses an intestate share if the will shows that its limited provision was meant only for children living when it was signed.
For the existing-child route, § 45a-257b(a)(2)(C) preserves the equitable or legal, present or future character of the existing children's gifts where feasible. Subsection (d) refers to § 45a-426(a)–(b) for abatement but literally names subsection (b)(1), which is an intentional-omission exception. Its application to an intestate-value omitted-child share is unclear from that wording.
What trips people up
The other-parent exception requires all or substantially all of the estate to pass to that parent, who must survive and be entitled to take under the will. An outside transfer under § 45a-257b(b)(2) defeats the later-child share only if statements, amount, or other evidence show it was intended in lieu of a testamentary gift.
Common questions
May the will intentionally exclude a later child? Yes. Section 45a-257b(b)(1) requires intentional omission to appear from the will.
Does every gift to a child living at execution cap the later child's share? Subsection (a)(2)(E) overrides the ordinary child-gift pool when the will shows that a limited provision specifically applied only to the children living at execution.
Statutes and sources
- Conn. Gen. Stat. §§ 45a-257b and 45a-426. Verbatim current text, official chapter URLs, and access dates appear in the source fields above.
Source links
Every statute quoted above, linked, with the date we checked it.
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