njlauren
Posts: 1577
Joined: 10/1/2011
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LL and others are right, in most states you cannot disinherit a spouse completely. If the couple is living together as man and wife at the time of the spouse's death, if the will disinherits the wife, the surviving spouse can file in court to get anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 the estate.
Here is an explanation about NJ
When a spouse dies and disinherits the surviving spouse under his Will, the surviving spouse may defeat the intent of the deceased spouse by filing a complaint in New Jersey Superior Court for what is called the “spousal elective share” to get a portion of the estate of the deceased spouse. Under the law in New Jersey, a surviving spouse (or surviving domestic partner) has the right to elect to take a one-third share of the deceased spouse’s estate if the deceased spouse dies while having a permanent residence in New Jersey, provided that the deceased spouse and the surviving spouse (or domestic partner) were not living separate and apart in different residences or had not ceased to cohabit as man and wife, and absent a valid pre-nuptial or post-nuptial agreement that waives the spousal elective share. Otherwise, a prenuptial or postnuptial agreement does not interfere with filing a complaint for the spousal elective share. New Jersey enacted the elective share statute primarily to prohibit the disinheritance of the surviving spouse.
The only way a spouse can be disinherited is if they agree to be. So for example, a sharia based will that would leave nothing to the wife would only be effective in the US if the wife agreed to it, if in writing she agreed to not try and inherit any of the estate.and even then, I suspect if she went into court and argued that in effect she signed that agreement under duress of something, it could be broken and the spouse given the spousal elective share (not a lawyer, just know how courts work).
A will is a contract, and they can be set up any way they wish, contracts are private matters that as long as both sides operate in good faith (ie no fraud), they have the ability to consent, there is no violation of criminal law or regulatory law, there is no duress, and the terms are fulfillable under reasonable man statutes, it is perfectly legal. Financial institutions in the US offer "sharia compliant" financial instruments, specifically mortgages, cause they want to do business with folks who practice the faith.
Yeah, there have been stupid people calling for "sharia" aspects to be put into law, the shithead who was the former archbishop of Canturbury, Rowan Williams (a gutless sack of do do if I every saw one, liberal but only when it came to what he decided was a cause), made a tempest when he called for British law to accept aspects of Sharia law, to make the Muslims in Englang feel welcome (prob he figured it would stop native born Muslims from becoming terrorists, which is both stupid and cowardly, not to mention it wouldn't work). Obviously, the idea got the effort it deserved.....There was a case in NJ where a judge who probably got his law degree from an online university ruled in a marriage case that the husband hitting the wife could not be cited as grounds for divorce, since in their home country (Morocco), such a thing was not forbidden under Sharia law, so based on their custom and culture, it couldn't be used..and the appelete court basically in legal language said the judge was an idiot, that this isn't Morocco and that he is supposed to apply NJ law if they are filing in NJ court.
I do find it ironic when the Fox News Crowd and the GOP yell and scream about Shariah law, when the religious right that the GOP sucks up to is just as bad. Take a look at same sex marriage bans or a horrible law like DOMA, what do you see? Religious belief ensconced as law, the objections to same sex marriage all boil down to religious belief, as the supporters of Prop 8 admitted in the Supreme Court testimony over it. We have religious groups who want Harry Potter removed from school libraries because it is promoting witchcraft and sorcery against Christian ideas, we had the GOP in Texas trying to pass a law that forbid school curricula that was based around critical reasoning (ie thinking, something apparently in short supply in large parts of Texas), we have continued attempts to allow the 10 commandments in courtrooms, crosses, or allowing kids to wear T shirts in schools with anti gay statements, we have those who promote abstinence only sex ed that is basically religious teaching, and who want formal prayer allowed back in the schools (Christian prayer, of course, since that is the only 'true' faith)..so how are they any different that the Islamic Sharia law they claim is going to take over? Something like 25-30 milion people in the US subscribe to the ideals of Christian Dominionism, so how can we call out Muslims and panic over Shariah law when the conservatives are supporting much the same thing in the US, albeit with a "Christian Shariah" kind of thing?
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