What Happens If I Die Without a Will?

Intestacy: The Will the Government Writes for You

When someone dies without a valid will, the law calls it dying 'intestate,' and a statutory formula — not the deceased's wishes — decides who inherits and in what shares. In Canada each province's succession or estate administration statute governs; in the United States each state's intestacy code does. These rules are rigid, apply the same way to everyone, and cannot account for the specific relationships, promises, or fairness concerns that a will exists to capture. The single most common misconception is that 'everything just goes to my spouse.' In reality, when there are children, most Canadian provinces give the surviving spouse a fixed preferential share first — often somewhere between $200,000 and $350,000 depending on the province — and then divide the remainder between the spouse and the children by formula. Many US states similarly split the estate between a spouse and children rather than giving the spouse the whole estate.

Because the shares are fixed percentages, intestacy also ignores need and circumstance entirely. A financially secure adult child inherits the same statutory slice as a struggling one; a minor's share is locked away under court supervision and then handed over as a lump sum at the age of majority; and an asset the family wanted to keep whole — a home, a farm, a business — may have to be sold so the proceeds can be divided. A will exists precisely to override all of this with your own judgment.

The Traps: Common-Law Partners, Blended Families, and No Close Kin

The most painful intestacy outcomes fall on the people who assume the law will look after them. Common-law partners are the clearest example. In most Canadian provinces the intestacy definition of 'spouse' includes only married spouses, so a common-law partner of twenty years can inherit nothing while the deceased's children or parents take everything — although a handful of provinces such as British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba do extend rights to qualifying common-law partners after a set period. In the United States the rule is even blunter: unmarried partners are simply not heirs under any state's intestacy statute and inherit nothing without a will, a beneficiary designation, joint ownership, or a trust.

Blended families are the second great trap. Under intestacy, biological children from every relationship share equally, but stepchildren you never legally adopted usually inherit nothing — the opposite of what many blended-family parents intend. And at the far end, a person who dies with no spouse, children, parents, or siblings has their estate passed down a statutory table of consanguinity to ever more distant relatives; if none can be found, the estate ultimately escheats to the Crown in Canada or to the state in the US. In every one of these situations, a simple will is the only instrument that redirects the outcome.

Administration, Bonds, and Tax When There Is No Will

Dying intestate does more than change who inherits — it changes who runs the estate and at what cost. With no will there is no named executor, so a family member (or sometimes a creditor or the public trustee) must apply to the court to be appointed administrator. That person frequently has to post an administration bond as security, an expense and delay that a will could have waived by simply naming a trusted executor. Where family members disagree about who should act, the appointment itself can turn into a contested court proceeding before a single asset is distributed.

Intestacy does not, however, change the tax and probate framework. In Canada there is no separate inheritance tax, but the estate still pays a deemed-disposition capital gains tax on death and provincial probate fees or estate administration tax on the value passing through the estate — whether or not there was a will. In the United States, the great majority of estates owe no federal estate tax at all because the value falls under the federal exemption (well into the millions of dollars per person), though a few states impose their own estate or inheritance tax. A will does not avoid these taxes, but coordinated planning — trusts, beneficiary designations, and joint ownership — can reduce probate exposure and keep assets out of a slow, court-supervised intestacy administration.

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