Dear Mr. Premack: My husband and I have one child together. I just found out he fathered three other children with three different women before we met. He lost parental rights on the first child, is not in contact with the second woman, and I recently found out he has been in secret contact with the third woman. How will this affect my son’s right to property? My husband and I own a house together. If I die, does the house get sold and divided or does it go to my son? -- LL

Your husband did not tell you about the previous children before you married and had a child with him. Your legal rights, and those of your child, are strongly affected by the existence of those other children. Perhaps the place to begin is to examine whether those three are or are not legally his children.

The status of child #1 has, according to your letter, been determined in court. In order to terminate his parental rights, the court had to recognize him as the father up to that point. The court action terminating that parent-child relationship ended all of the legal rights child #1 could enforce against your husband. The only exception is that child #1 will still inherit from your husband unless the court order explicitly terminated inheritance rights along with all the other rights.

Are children #2 and #3 legally your husband’s children? Texas law presumes he is the father if 1) he was married to each mother at the time each child was born or each child was born within 301 days after each marriage ended, 2) if he married the mother after the date of birth and voluntarily asserted paternity (by, for instance, agreeing to be named as father on the birth certificate), or 3) he resided in the mother’s household for the first two years of each child’s life and told others that he is the father.

If one of those fact patterns applies, he is the legal father. He is also legally the father if a court has so ruled, if he adopted each child, or if he signed an acknowledgment of paternity.

One other law applies as well: after the putative father dies, if a person claims to be his biological child but none of the above methods legally establishes paternity, that person can petition the probate court to determine the validity of the claim. If the court finds there is clear and convincing evidence of paternity, that person inherits just like any other child. Paternity claims do not go away just because the putative father has died.

Once a person can claim the legal status of "child," inheritance rights are based on provisions in the Texas Probate Code. The law allows each of us to proactively declare for ourselves who will inherit our assets, by making a Will or creating rights of survivorship or establishing a trust. If your husband is proactive, he can legally leave the house to you or, if you die first leave it to your child to the exclusion of all the other children.

If he is not proactive, then the laws of descent and distribution are used to determine who will inherit. He owns a half interest in the house as community property. Assuming that all three children from these other women have a legal paternity claim, his half of the house will pass in equal shares to all of his children – including your son and all three of the prior children (unless the court order terminating his parental rights in child #1 cut off that child’s right to inherit).

Even if they receive his half of the house you continue to own your half, and have the right to reside in the house until you voluntarily move out or until you die. They own half, but they cannot force the sale of the house.