Note: This blog assumes you died without a will, without a trust, without a power of attorney, and without any jointly owned assets.

A will is an instrument that dictates who your stuff goes to when you die.

If you don’t have a will, or a trust, then all of your assets are in limbo.

Lets say you die tomorrow (god forbid)

Your immediate family members will be traumatized and likely not even start thinking about your assets immediately.

Your family would plan a funeral and have a celebration of life in your honor.

Then at some point, someone’s going to say… well, what happens to mom’s car? And the house? Can we just sell it now? What about her bank accounts? Her 401k? What happens??

Maybe your family will attempt to access your bank accounts, or attempt to put your house on the market, but they’d be quickly shut down.

The banks would say… you’re not your mom. And if you want to have access to her accounts you need to get a fiduciary’s certificate from the probate court. What the hell is that?

And if they tried to sell the house, any buyer doing a standard title search would quickly be alerted to the fact that the house is owned by a dead person and therefore not able to be sold with clear title.

So your kids would, hopefully, contact a lawyer (🙋 860-913-0210) to help them through this confusing process.

Dying without a will.

So What Happens?

When you die without a will your stuff will have to go through probate. Additionally, you will have to get an executor appointed to manage your estate.

The banks and title companies will not clear any of a dead person’s assets unless someone gets legal authority to own them.

You do this through the probate court.

The probate court will appoint an executor, usually a family member, and that executor will have the authority to do everything that you were able to do while you were alive. So now that executor can access the bank accounts, sell the house, etc.

Once the executor takes control of your stuff, they’re required by law to make the appropriate distributions to your beneficiaries.

But how can we be assured the executor doesn’t just run off with all your stuff?

The court will require that the executor to get bond which is an insurance policy on the estate. (Unless the other kids waive the bond requirement)

Now that the executor has control of all your stuff they can make decisions like selling your house and making distributions.

Without a will the executor is required to make distributions in accordance with the “laws of intestacy.” Here are CT’s intestate laws. And here are MA’s intestate laws.

The laws of intestacy basically say that your closest relatives get your stuff split equally and your spouse, if you have one, gets more.

The laws of intestacy were constructed on common sense.

Common sense implies that most people want their closest relatives to have their stuff.

So when you don’t have a will, the default laws of intestacy kick in and give all your stuff to your closest relatives.

Kids and spouse.

If you don’t have kids or a spouse, the laws say the next level of closest relatives will inherit… Parents or siblings.

And if you don’t have parents of siblings, the laws say to keep tracking the next layers of close family members.

So if you truly don’t have any known relatives, the state will try and find distant relatives.

Only when the state cannot find ZERO family whatsoever will your stuff be given to the state.

Read more about what happens if you die without a will in MA and in CT.