A child from an earlier marriage

A child from an earlier marriage is a child. The statutory division of art. 4:13 BW includes that child as well, together with the spouse or the registered partner and the other children. The will can switch the regime off. If it does not, the statute applies to this child too. In the file this is a separate person involved. Not a footnote to the surviving spouse or registered partner. Not a line under another child. Own name, own tie, own documents.

The surviving spouse or registered partner receives the assets. This child receives a monetary claim against the surviving spouse or registered partner, just like the other children for whom the division applies. In principle the claim is payable on the death of the surviving spouse or registered partner. In the file that claim stands in this child's name, with the surviving spouse or registered partner as debtor. It is not left out because the child did not live in the later household. It is not made smaller in a note. The software does not invent a smaller share.

The other parent can stand as a fact with the person involved, with a source from the civil-status register. That parent is not thereby an heir of this estate. The tie only explains why this child is a child from an earlier marriage. Correspondence can go to this child without running through the surviving spouse or registered partner. Access to the portal, if it is given, applies to this person involved themselves. In that way the child stays visible on the timeline and not only in a subordinate clause of someone else.

Interest on the claim is often set out in the will or in the statute. The file fills in no percentage. The amount of the claim stays empty until there is a calculation with a source. Gifts and debts are not silently attributed to this child. What is known stands with the estate inventory. Another testamentary system applies only if the deed says so. Until that deed has been read, the working rule remains the statute, or the question stays open if it is not yet known whether a will switches the statute off.

Ervazo places this child in the division as a person involved in their own right and does not calculate by way of advice. It draws up no deed, files no tax return and makes no payment. The claim remains an entry of its own. No footnote replaces that entry. The civil-law notary, the court or the Dutch Tax Administration (Belastingdienst) decides the specific case. This child's claim remains an entry of its own until that decision fixes the amount and when it is payable.