If you die without a will in Massachusetts, the state decides who gets your assets, who raises your children, and who administers your estate. The rules are fixed, take no account of your wishes, and almost certainly do not match what you would have chosen. Understanding what happens by default is often the most effective argument for putting a plan in place.
The Massachusetts Intestacy Rules
Massachusetts follows a hierarchy of distribution under the Massachusetts Uniform Probate Code. Who inherits depends on which family members survive you. The rules are precise, and sometimes surprising.
| Survivors at Death | Who Gets What |
|---|---|
| Spouse, no descendants or parents | Spouse inherits everything |
| Spouse + descendants (all shared with spouse) | Spouse inherits everything |
| Spouse + descendants (at least one not shared) | Spouse gets the first $100,000 + half the remainder; descendants share the rest |
| Spouse + parent(s), no descendants | Spouse gets $200,000 + three-quarters of the remainder; parents share the rest |
| Descendants only, no spouse | Descendants inherit equally (per stirpes) |
| No spouse, no descendants | Parents, then descendants of parents, then extended family |
| No surviving relatives | Estate escheats to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts |
At first glance, the rules may seem reasonable, assets generally flow toward spouses and children. But the details create real problems for many families.
The Problems That Intestacy Creates
No Guardian for Minor Children
This is the most significant outcome of dying without a will, and it affects families with young children more than anyone else. A will is the only legal document by which you can name a guardian, the person who would raise your children if both parents were to die.
Without a guardian designation, a Probate and Family Court judge must determine who raises your children. The judge does not know your family. They do not know which relative shares your values, your parenting philosophy, or your children's relationships. They will make the best decision they can with the information available, which is far less than what you already know.
In contested situations, relatives may disagree about who should be appointed, and the children may find themselves at the center of a legal dispute during one of the most difficult periods of their lives. The entire proceeding is public record.
Blended Families: The Rules Don't Reflect Reality
The intestacy rules were written for traditional nuclear families. For blended families, stepchildren, stepparents, children from prior relationships, the rules can produce deeply counterintuitive results.
Stepchildren you have raised as your own have no inheritance rights under Massachusetts intestacy law unless you have legally adopted them. A stepparent who has been a functioning co-parent for years has no inheritance right. The biological children from a prior relationship may receive assets you intended entirely for your current spouse and family.
Only a will can direct assets according to the actual relationships in your life rather than the bloodline relationships assumed by law.
Long-Term Partners Are Invisible to Intestacy Law
Massachusetts intestacy law recognizes only legal spouses, not domestic partners, not long-term partners, not couples who consider themselves married in every practical sense but haven't formalized the relationship legally. A partner who has shared your home, your finances, and your life for twenty years has no inheritance right under intestacy. Everything passes to legal relatives instead.
A common misconception: Massachusetts does not recognize common-law marriage. Regardless of how long a couple has lived together, cohabitation does not create spousal inheritance rights. Only a valid marriage, or a properly executed will, protects a partner's inheritance interests.
Minor Children Cannot Inherit Directly
Under Massachusetts law, a minor child cannot hold property directly. If assets pass to minor children through intestacy, a conservator must be appointed by the court to manage those assets until the children reach 18. At 18, not 21, not 25, not whenever they are mature enough, the full inheritance is released outright.
This is rarely what parents intend. A will allows you to establish a testamentary trust that holds assets for children until whatever age you specify, with distributions managed by a trustee you choose, on terms you set.
The Administrator Is Court-Appointed
When you die without a will, you leave no instruction about who should handle your estate. The court appoints a personal representative (formerly called an administrator) according to a statutory priority list: surviving spouse first, then adult children, then parents, and so on. If the person the court would normally appoint is unavailable or contested, the process becomes more complicated and more expensive.
A will names an executor, someone you trust, who understands your wishes, and who can handle the administrative responsibilities involved. Without a will, that choice is removed from you entirely.
The Probate Process Without a Will
Dying intestate does not avoid probate, it typically makes probate longer and more costly. Without a will, there is no executor to authorize, no beneficiary designations to follow, and no guidance to streamline the process. The court must identify heirs, establish their shares, and supervise distribution according to the statutory rules.
For a North Shore family with a home, a few financial accounts, and modest assets, probate without a will typically takes longer and costs more than probate with a properly drafted estate plan, and it produces a result the deceased may never have wanted.
What Intestacy Does Not Cover
It's worth noting that certain assets pass outside the probate process entirely, regardless of whether you have a will. These include:
- Assets held in joint tenancy with right of survivorship (pass to the surviving joint owner)
- Retirement accounts and IRAs with named beneficiaries
- Life insurance policies with named beneficiaries
- Assets held in a trust
- Bank accounts with a payable-on-death (POD) designation
These assets follow their own beneficiary designations, not your will, and not intestacy law. This is why a complete estate plan reviews both the will and all beneficiary designations together. An outdated beneficiary designation can undermine a carefully drafted will.
The Bottom Line
Dying without a will doesn't mean your family gets nothing, it means the state decides who gets what, on terms the legislature established decades ago, without any knowledge of your family, your values, or what you would have wanted. For families with minor children, blended households, long-term partners, or any meaningful assets, the intestacy outcome is almost always worse than what a simple will would have produced.
A foundational estate plan, will, healthcare proxy, and durable power of attorney, can be completed in a matter of weeks. If you haven't started, contact Brigantine Law for a Consultation and we'll explain exactly what you need.
Every day without a plan is a day the default rules govern what happens to everything you have built. Writing a will is not a complicated process. Putting it off is the only real risk.