Can You Condition An Inheritance On Marrying In A Certain Religion Or Faith?

When creating an estate plan, you can use certain estate planning vehicles, to condition how and when people get the assets you leave to them. For example, you could condition an inheritance on graduating college, or on someone being at a certain job for a certain amount of time, or leave funds or assets for someone but only if they are disabled.

What About Religious Restrictions?

But a lot of people have another wish: they may want their younger, unmarried beneficiaries, to only marry within the family religion. And they may want to incentivize that, by conditioning an inheritance on the beneficiary actually marrying someone of a given religion.

Sometimes, the condition is that someone—the beneficiary or the beneficiary’s spouse—converts to a given religion within a certain amount of time.

Courts Generally Allow These Restrictions

There are no California cases on the legality of doing this, but other states have had mixed opinions on the practice.

Many states see it as an alienation or restriction of marriage, something that public policy tends to disfavor. They also see it as being racially discriminatory.

However, other states have said differently, acknowledging that it is discriminatory, but if someone wants to discriminate in their own, private estate plan, with their own, private assets, they are free to do so.

Those states don’t see this as restricting or alienating marriage, so long as the estate plan doesn’t encourage divorce (for example, by conditioning a gift on someone divorcing their spouse because he or she is of a different religion).

California does say that any contract or document that is a “restraint on marriage” is void. But whether a “marry in the religion or else” provision actually does restrain marriage, is something no California court has actually addressed.

Constitutional Restrictions?

To have constitutional implications, there must be a state, or government actor. Wills, trusts and estates are private documents, so there is no constitutional issue. But in many instances, private businesses and actors are prohibited from discrimination on religious grounds based on federal laws, and courts may not have to follow a provision in a will or estate that they consider to be discriminatory.

How to Do It

If you do want to condition a gift in your estate plan on a religious basis, or one that relates to marriage in any way—you may have to find a way to word it that doesn’t make it look like you are restricting anybody from marrying, nor encouraging anybody to divorce.

While many states have upheld these kinds of provisions, most states have also been careful to note that they will not support any provision that inhibits the right to marry. And there is also no guarantee that a California court would find any kind of religious restriction in an estate plan, an enforceable document.

Religious concerns with your estate plan? Let us help you.  Call the Torrance probate will and estate attorneys at Samuel Ford Law today.

Sources:

nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/conditional-gifts-wills-trusts.html#:~:text=For%20example%2C%20courts%20have%20refused,decide%20in%20a%20particular%20case.

scholarship.law.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1377&context=elders