A person who is not mentioned in a will and whom the testator overlooked when making his/her will may be entitled to receive an inheritance. If courts determine that this heir was pretermitted, he or she gets their share of the estate as if they had died intestate.”
A pretermitted heir is a child who was left out of a testator’s will. Under common law, the omission of a child from a will was presumed to be intentional; nevertheless, jurisdictions have enacted pretermitted heir statutes to safeguard mistakenly omitted heirs. Pretermitted heir statutes provide that the heir obtains the same percentage of the testator’s estate as if the testator had died intestate.
