Baby Mama is not Automatic Wife. Know your Legal rights

In our society, it’s common to see women live with men for years, have children with them, and even build a life together but here’s the legal truth many people don’t like to hear:

• Being a “baby mama” does not give you automatic rights to inherit a man’s property.

•You may have stood by him for years.
You may have even had children with him.
But if there is no valid marriage and no Will where he named you as a beneficiary, the law does not recognize you.

Here’s how the law looks at it:

•Having a child for him does not make you entitled to his estate.
• You are not his legal next of kin unless he made it so in writing.
• Under intestate succession (when there is no Will), only his legal wife and children are recognized beneficiaries.

The law is not moved by emotions. It is not about “everybody knew we were together.” It works with documents, not sympathy.

So what happens when there’s no Will?

• His legal wife and children will be recognized.
•The court may issue Letters of Administration to those lawful beneficiaries.
• His estate will be shared based on statutory or customary rules not based on how long you stayed with him.

Now, let’s be clear about the child.
Whether legitimate or not, the child has inheritance rights but those rights belong to the child, not to the mother.

So if you’re not legally married to him and he didn’t write your name in a Will, you cannot claim his house, his land, or his business.

And to the men reading this, this is your wake-up call.

•Write a Will.
•Define your intentions clearly.
•Don’t leave your loved ones to fight bitter wars over what you could have settled with one document.

Because at the end of the day, assumption is not law.