On August 4, 2024, the Hadera Family Court ruled that a child conceived by donated sperm was not an heir of his mother’s former partner, despite a spousal agreement entered before the child’s birth in which the former partner committed to recognize paternity of any children later born to the mother from artificial insemination.
The court revoked an inheritance order stipulating that a child born from sperm donation was the sole heir of a deceased person based on the spousal agreement. The Court held that since the child was not the biological son of the deceased, he could not be considered an heir under section 10 of the Inheritance Law 5725-1965, which lists persons to be considered as heirs under the law. (Estate File (Fm. Ct. Hadera) 19419-02-23 Anonymous v. Minor (Aug. 8, 2024).)
Background
In Israel, marriage is governed by religious law, and some couples who cannot or do not wish to enter into a religious marriage instead may enter into a spousal agreement. In this case, the deceased and the child’s mother entered into a spousal agreement on November 6, 2007, in which the parties agreed that the mother would undergo artificial fertilization and that the deceased would “assist in the success of the fertilization process” and “recognize his paternity over the child(ren), with all that this entails.” On July 9, 2010, the deceased and the mother signed a “consent form for the transfer of embryos to the mother’s body.” The minor was born in 2011 through fertility treatments. On his birth certificate, the deceased and the mother were listed as his parents. In 2012, the deceased and the mother separated. The deceased died on November 30, 2022.
An inheritance order issued on January 17, 2023, at the mother’s request recognized the minor as the deceased’s sole heir. On January 24, 2024, the deceased’s sisters filed an application to cancel the inheritance order based on the existence of a will in which the deceased bequeathed all his property to them. The will said the minor was not the deceased’s biological son, that he had no family or emotional connection with him, and that there had been no contact between them since the deceased had separated from the mother. The sisters claimed that the inheritance order must be canceled since the minor was not the deceased’s biological son and had not been adopted by him.
Decision
The ruling by Judge Yifat Shkedi Schatz said that Israel’s Inheritance Law defines methods of inheritance strictly and precisely, and provisions relating to intestate heirs are not subject to interpretation or discretion. The law states that a deceased’s biological child or adopted child are heirs according to law. The law does not recognize parent-child relations that are not based on either biological parentage or legal adoption for purpose of establishing a lawful right of inheritance.
Israeli courts have previously recognized the possibility of imposing obligations and recognizing rights that derive from parental relations even in cases where there was no biological parenthood, based on provisions on alimony or contract law and in the interests of justice, Judge Shkedi Schatz noted. But there has been no recognition of the possibility of establishing or declaring parenthood based on a consensual basis without it being validated in a judicial decree. An obligation in an agreement, a declaration towards third parties, or the fulfillment of obligations towards a minor are insufficient to create a parent-child relationship under existing law. She therefore concluded that in the circumstances of the current case, the child did not fall within the scope of the term “child” prescribed in section 10 of the Inheritance Law, and thus had no standing to oppose the will.
Stating that the registrar would have issued a different order had it been aware that the child was not the biological son of the deceased, Judge Shkedi Schatz ordered that the inheritance order be cancelled and that a probate order for the deceased’s will be issued.
Ruth Levush, Law Library of Congress
August 19, 2024
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