Inheritance for estranged children

[SFR9]

my mother recently passed away. In addition to myself and my brother, she had a daughter from her first marriage who she lost contact with. My understanding is that she divorced her first husband, lost custody of her daughter (aged around 3) in the late seventies/early eighties. Her first husband remarried and there is I suppose a chance that the daughter was adopted by her stepmother. There has been no contact between her and daughter for at least 40 years, and myself/brother have never had any contact with our sibling. The will states ‘children’ although she had expressed verbally this did not include the daughter, but obviously verbal means nothing in law. As she died in Scotland children all have legal rights too. My question is whether the daughter will still be considered as one of the children if custody was lost? I genuinely have no idea and wish to do the right thing. any advice gratefully received.

[sederunt]

My thoughts: The failure to name or exclude children in the will means that a bequest to children is a class gift that applies to all children. Estrangement and custody would have no bearing. But adoption by a stepmother would remove the person from entitlement.

Legal rights (legitim) is an alternative to receiving a legacy - either one or the other.

[SFR9]

Thank you. Having done some more research - if we can't track down the sibling, I assume we can use a Bond of Caution to protect her share until such time as the window has passed for her to claim? I have very little to go on!

[sederunt]

Executor's liability insurance, whether it would be appropriate and what conditions may apply - these are issues for the executor(s) to explore, and decide upon based on their assessment of risk.