A lot of blended families in Maryland operate on a quiet assumption: leave everything to your spouse, trust that they’ll do right by everyone, and your children from a prior relationship will eventually inherit their share. It’s reasonable. It’s also one of the most reliable ways to see an estate plan fall apart. Maryland law doesn’t make the promises your will intends to keep, and the gap between what you plan and what actually happens can cost your children their inheritance entirely.
We’ve been working with Maryland families on wills, trusts, and estate matters since 1997, and blended family situations are among the most common places we see well-meaning plans produce outcomes no one wanted. The problem usually isn’t a drafting error. It’s a misunderstanding of how Maryland law treats competing claims between a surviving spouse and children from a prior relationship.
Why a Simple Will Doesn’t Guarantee Your Children Inherit
The first risk appears even before the elective share enters the picture. If you die without a will, Maryland’s intestate succession rules under Md. Code, Estates and Trusts section 3-102 divide your estate in ways that frequently surprise blended families. If a surviving minor child exists, the spouse receives half the intestate estate and all children split the other half. Under the version of section 3-102 reformed effective October 1, 2023, if there are no surviving minor children but there are adult children from a prior relationship, the spouse receives the first $100,000 plus half of the remainder, with those adult children splitting what’s left.
Stepchildren face a sharper problem: they aren’t considered issue under Maryland intestacy law and inherit nothing unless they were legally adopted or specifically named in a will or trust. A stepchild you’ve raised for twenty years has no default claim under Maryland law. That’s not a technicality. It’s the rule.
The Elective Share Trap: How Maryland’s Augmented Estate Law Can Override Your Plan
Even a carefully drafted will can be reached by a surviving spouse through Maryland’s elective share, and this is where most blended family estate plans have a blind spot. Under Estates and Trusts section 3-403, a surviving spouse can elect to take one third of the augmented estate if the decedent has surviving descendants, or one half if there are none. The critical term is augmented estate, not probate estate. Since the elective share reform took effect on October 1, 2020, Maryland’s augmented estate calculation under section 3-404 reaches far beyond assets that pass through probate.
The augmented estate includes:
- Jointly titled property
- Trust assets, including revocable living trusts
- Beneficiary-designated accounts, such as retirement accounts, IRAs, and life insurance proceeds
- Certain qualifying lifetime transfers made by the decedent
This matters enormously for blended families because many people believe that placing assets into a trust or naming their children as beneficiaries on a retirement account keeps those assets beyond a surviving spouse’s reach. Under Maryland’s augmented estate rules, that’s no longer true. The election must be filed at the later of nine months after the date of death or six months after a personal representative is appointed. Under section 3-406, the elective share right can be waived only through a written contract, agreement, or waiver signed by the party waiving it. In practice, that means a prenuptial or postnuptial agreement. A trust, a carefully worded will, a beneficiary designation change: none of these tools can waive what the statute grants.
Tools That Work with Maryland Law, Not Against It
Trusts Designed for Blended Families
A trust that provides income to a surviving spouse for life while preserving the principal for children from a prior relationship is a structure attorneys sometimes call a QTIP trust (qualified terminable interest property trust). Its assets still count toward the augmented estate calculation unless the elective share has been waived, so a trust alone isn’t a workaround. It’s one part of a coordinated plan.
Beneficiary Designations
Retirement accounts, life insurance, and payable-on-death accounts pass by beneficiary designation regardless of what a will states. Those same accounts are captured in the augmented estate, so updating a beneficiary designation to name a child from a prior relationship doesn’t necessarily remove that account from a surviving spouse’s potential elective share claim.
Prenuptial & Postnuptial Agreements
A marital agreement is the most reliable mechanism for waiving elective share rights. If the goal is to protect children from a prior relationship while still providing for a current spouse, a marital agreement that addresses elective share rights gives the entire plan its foundation. Everything else is built on top of it.
Filing in Anne Arundel & Howard County
Probate and elective share elections are filed with the Register of Wills in the county where the decedent was domiciled at death. This is not where the estate assets are located or where family members live. For families in the Glen Burnie area, that means the Anne Arundel County Register of Wills in Annapolis. For families in the Columbia area, that filing goes to the Howard County Register of Wills at the Circuit Courthouse in Ellicott City. Knowing which office handles the filing matters for meeting deadlines, especially the nine-month window on elective share elections, and for understanding the probate process your personal representative will navigate.
Protecting a blended family in Maryland requires planning around the elective share, the augmented estate, and the specific roles you want your spouse and children to play. A will alone is not enough. Ward & Co Law has guided Maryland families through exactly this kind of planning from our Glen Burnie and Columbia offices since 1997. If your family situation has changed and you’re not sure your current plan reflects what Maryland law will actually do with it, reach out to us at (410) 775-5955.