What Is Intestacy?

INTESTACY is when a person dies without a valid Will. The person is often referred to as having “died intestate”.

Dying without a valid Will does not mean that the person’s estate is not probated. All states have laws in place to deal with this situation. Those laws require that a court proceeding take place under the “Laws of Intestacy” to determine who inherits the person’s property. The court will determine the person’s heirs according to those laws and distribute the estate’s property to those  heirs.

The first problem with using this type of court proceeding is that it takes longer to determine the heirs and the property that must be distributed to them. This increases the cost of the proceeding as well. The second problem is that the Laws of Intestacy may require that an heir receive a piece of the estate’s property that the person who died had no intention of leaving to them. No matter what the person actually wished to do with their property, the lack of a valid Will means that those wishes will be ignored.