What Happens to Your Money If You Die Without a Will?

Who inherits if you die without a will?

Each state has an intestacy law that sets the order. Many follow the Uniform Probate Code, which works roughly like this:

1. Your spouse, who may inherit everything or share with your children, depending on the state and whose children they are.
2. Your descendants: children, with grandchildren taking the place of a child who has died.
3. Your parents.
4. Your parents' descendants: brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews.
5. Your grandparents and their descendants: aunts, uncles and cousins.
6. Descendants of a spouse who died before you.

Only if no one in these groups survives does the estate pass to the state, as in Hawaii's version of the code (Haw. Rev. Stat. §560:2-103 and §560:2-105).

Intestacy is common among estates that go through probate. In one study of every probate estate in Alameda County, California, for deaths in 2007, 43% had no will (David Horton, UCLA Law Review, 2015, reviewed by Jotwell).

Does the state take your money if you don't have a will?

Almost never. When the state takes property because there are no heirs, it's called escheat, and it requires that no qualifying relative can be found at all.

Some states search very far for relatives. California passes an estate to "the next of kin in equal degree," with no cutoff, and then to the family of a spouse who died earlier (Cal. Prob. Code §6402). Texas law continues up the family tree "and so on without end" (Tex. Estates Code §201.001).

No one tracks escheat nationally. Oregon is one state that has published figures: in fiscal 2014 its estates program handled 284 estates without heirs, with $6.7 million pending permanent escheat to the state's school fund (Oregon Department of State Lands). Heirs who turn up later can still recover assets in Oregon for up to 10 years.

Is unclaimed property the same thing?

No. Unclaimed property is money that sits untouched, such as dormant bank accounts, uncashed checks and forgotten life insurance. Holders turn it over to the state, which keeps it in custody until the owner or heirs claim it.

States held about $70 billion of it as of a 2023 estimate, and returned $4.25 billion to owners in fiscal 2025 (NAUPA). Since 2016, a national life insurance search tool has matched about $17 billion in lost policy and annuity benefits to the families who were owed them (NAIC). A simple list of your accounts, kept with your will, helps your executor find everything.

What are the real costs of dying without a will?

• You don't choose who inherits. Intestacy laws generally don't include unmarried partners, stepchildren you haven't adopted, friends or charities.
• A court chooses who is in charge. Without an executor named in a will, the court appoints an administrator.
• A court chooses who raises your children. A will is where you name a guardian for minor children.
• Your family may end up in disagreement. The law's default may not match what you would have wanted, and relatives can be left guessing.

Does a will avoid probate?

No. A will tells the probate court what you want, but your estate still goes through probate. Probate can be expensive: in California, the executor and the attorney can each charge a statutory fee of 4% of the first $100,000 of the gross estate, 3% of the next $100,000 and 2% of the next $800,000. For a $1 million estate, that's about $46,000 combined (Cal. Prob. Code §10800, §10810).

These pass outside probate and outside your will:

• Retirement accounts and life insurance with a named beneficiary
• Bank accounts with a payable-on-death beneficiary, and brokerage accounts with a transfer-on-death registration
• Property owned jointly with right of survivorship
• Assets held in a living trust

Beneficiary forms override your will, so review them whenever you update your plan. They are also the easiest place to name a charity: see how to leave your IRA to charity.

How do you keep your estate from going to distant relatives or the state?

• Write a will, or a trust, that names your beneficiaries and a backup for each.
• Name contingent beneficiaries on every account form.
• Add a backstop bequest. It names a cause as the last beneficiary in line. The people you name inherit exactly as planned, and the cause receives your estate only if none of them survive you. Relatives you didn't name won't inherit by default, so make this choice deliberately.

Sample backstop wording to discuss with your attorney:

If no beneficiary named in this will survives me, I give my estate to one or more charitable organizations described in Sections 170(c) and 2055(a) of the Internal Revenue Code, selected by my Executor, to be used for [the purposes you choose].

Our free builder adds a backstop with one checkbox.