What Happen If I Die Without a Will or Intestate?

When a person dies, all his estate will be frozen. Bank accounts, properties, stocks, cars and other assets are going to be on hold until the issues of ownership transfer have been resolved.

If you die with a will or testate, your estate would be distributed according to your wish in your last will. All your beneficiaries are going to inherit the portion of the assets as intended by you.

What happen if you die without a will? A person dies without a will is known as "die intestate". If you die intestate, your estate would be distributed according to intestacy laws. In this case, an administrator has got to be appointed to administer the whole process of estate distribution. The jobs of an administrator is similar to those of an executor. The difference is just an administrator is not your preference choice of person to handle the distribution for you.

How would your estate be distributed? It depends on your marital status, whether the issues (children) exist, which state you are staying in and other factors.

If you are married with children, your spouse are likely to inherit one-third to one-half of your total estate. The residue shall be distributed among your children.

If you are married without any children, one-third to one-half of your total estate goes to your spouse. The rest goes to your parents. If there is no surviving parent, it goes further to siblings.

If you are single with children, it is quite simple. Your estate goes 100% to your children in equal shares.

If you are single without any children, it goes to your surviving parents. Otherwise, your estate will be awarded to your siblings.

The process of disbursing the estate of people who die intestate would be considerably long compare to those die testate. In this process, your wealth are totally inaccessible by your dependants and this could generate series of problems for them especially on funding their living expenses.

If you have a minor, you cannot appoint the one whom you trust as a guardian to look after them. Intestacy laws empower the court to appoint a guardian on behalf.

There could be more troubles if you die without a will. Hence, proper estate planning is very important to make sure you do not leave h*ll behind while you are in heaven.

More on Estate Planning