Short answer. Succession rights revert to their status before the adoption — but only from the date of the judgment rescinding it, and vested rights acquired before that judgment are respected. So the adoptee stops being an heir of the adopter going forward, yet inheritances that already vested while the adoption stood are not clawed back.
What the law says
Succession rights shall revert to its status prior to adoption, but only as of the date of judgment of judicial rescission. Vested rights acquired prior to judicial rescission shall be respected.
RA 8552, Section 20 — Effects Of Rescission. Read the full provision →
What the law says
The reciprocal rights and obligations of the adopter(s) and the adoptee to each other shall be extinguished.
RA 8552, Section 20 — Effects Of Rescission. Read the full provision →
Rescission ends the adoptive relationship
When a court grants the rescission of an adoption under Republic Act No. 8552, the legal tie the adoption created is undone. The section states that The reciprocal rights and obligations of the adopter(s) and the adoptee to each other shall be extinguished. Because inheritance between adopter and adoptee flows from that adoptive parent-child relationship, ending the relationship necessarily affects the right to inherit from each other. The adoptee is no longer the adopter's child in law, and the mutual duties — support, and the succession rights that come with being parent and child — no longer bind them for the future. Rescission, in short, closes the relationship that was the source of those inheritance rights in the first place.
Succession reverts — but only from the judgment
The law is careful about timing. It says Succession rights shall revert to its status prior to adoption, but only as of the date of judgment of judicial rescission. Two ideas are packed in here. First, the direction of the change: succession rights go back to what they were before the adoption ever happened — so the adoptee returns, for inheritance purposes, to his position in his biological family and ceases to be an heir of the adopter. Second, and crucially, the change is not retroactive. It takes effect from the date the court's judgment of rescission is rendered, not from the original adoption. Everything before that date is measured under the adoption as it then stood.
Vested rights are protected
Flowing directly from that timing rule is the protection of what has already been acquired. The section provides that Vested rights acquired prior to judicial rescission shall be respected. A vested right is one that has already become fixed and enforceable — for example, an inheritance that already passed to the adoptee because the adopter died while the adoption was still valid. Rescission does not reach back to strip such rights away. This prevents the unfair result of undoing completed inheritances or forcing someone to return property that had already lawfully become theirs. The line is drawn at the judgment: rights already vested stand; rights that would only have arisen afterward do not.
The other effects, and today's framework
Rescission carries further consequences the section spells out: if the adoptee is still a minor or incapacitated, parental authority returns to the biological parents, if known, or legal custody to the Department; and the court orders the civil registrar to cancel the amended birth certificate and restore the original. The section also preserves any liability under the Penal Code where criminal acts are proven. Note, too, that the adoption system itself was later reorganized by Republic Act No. 11642, which shifted much of adoption and its rescission to an administrative process — so the procedure today may differ even where these substantive principles on rights still guide the outcome. Because succession and rescission questions interact closely, they are worth taking to counsel.