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Do you really know
what happens to your property if you die without a will? (CLICK
HERE AND CHOOSE YOUR STATE FOR THE QUICK ANSWER)
Some common misconceptions include everything being given to charity or to
the state. Another common misconception, with more serious
consequences, is the belief that a surviving spouse is always granted all or
substantially all of the deceased spouse's intestate estate.
In reality, much of the answer to these
questions depends upon where you permanently reside and which of your family
members are living at the time of your death, as these will determine which
intestacy laws will apply in order to determine the proper order of
intestate succession. Some other factors that affect your intestate
estate's distribution include how the property is owned, where the property
is located, and even the family relationship that your living relatives have
with one another.
Making the answer to this question even more
difficult is the fact that every American state has its own laws that
determine who will own the property of every
intestate decedent and none of the
states follow the exact same system. What is possibly the most
important factor to understand is that these
intestacy laws apply to every person.
With each state having its own unique laws,
generalized statements about the process are frequently inaccurate.
The complexity of these laws also makes written examples difficult to
understand, as well as inapplicable to most people. Although these
laws apply to everyone, it is incredibly difficult to find real examples of
how they are applied.
Intestacy Calculators™
For the first time, personally meaningful examples of how
the intestate laws operate can be found with the
Intestacy Calculators™
listed to the right, which are the first interactive programs that interpret
the laws of intestacy based upon individual family and financial
circumstances entered by the user.
The complexity of each individual program is determined
entirely by each state's individual intestacy laws. Some of the more
interesting Intestacy Calculators are
Arkansas, California,
Missouri, and
Texas.
However, as none of the states have the same body of
laws, none of the Intestacy Calculators™
are the same and it is interesting to try different states just to see the
differences.
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