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Baba Basra 8:7-8

Baba Basra 8:7

Let’s say that a person writes a document assigning his property to his sons. Rabbi Yehuda says that he must write, "effective today, after my death." Rabbi Yosi says that this is unnecessary (the date in the document being sufficient). If person writes a document assigning his property to his sons for after he dies, the father cannot sell his property because it is already assigned to his son, and the son cannot sell the property because it still belongs to the father. If the father did sell the property, it remains sold until he dies; if the son sold the property, the buyer cannot claim it until the father dies. The father may pick whatever produce from the property and use it to feed whomever he wants; and whatever picked produce remains when he dies is divided among his heirs (and does not automatically go to the one assigned the property). If a person dies leaving both adult sons and minor sons, the adults are not supported at the expense of the minors, nor vice versa. Rather, all the sons divide the estate equally. If the adult sons married (after their father died and took the expenses from the estate), the minor sons may do likewise. If the adult sons married while their father was still alive and the minor sons want to take money from from the estate to marry, we do not listen to them. In such a case, whatever the father gave the older sons, he gave as a gift (and not as part of the estate).

Baba Basra 8:8

If a man died leaving both adult daughters and minor daughters, the adults are not supported at the expense of the minors, nor vice versa. Rather, they divide the estate equally. If the adult daughters married (after their father died, paying for it from the estate), the minor daughters may do likewise. If the adult daughters married while their father was still alive and the minor daughters want to take money from the estate to marry, we do not listen to them. There is one area in which inheritance law is more stringent with daughters than with sons: (minor) daughters are supported at the expense of sons but not at the expense of (adult) daughters.

Author: Rabbi Jack Abramowitz