They Died Without a Will. Here's Who Decides What Happens Next.

Someone you love died, and there's no will. That's a hard spot, and I'll say plainly: it's often more manageable than it feels right now. When there's no will, the state has already written one for you. It's called intestacy — dying without a valid will — and it means a set of default rules decides who inherits and who's in charge. Your job isn't to guess. It's to follow the order those rules lay out. Here's that order.

1. Secure the basics before you touch anything legal (first 1–2 days)

Before probate court enters the picture, protect the physical things.

Lock the home and vehicles. Bring in pets. Find any prescriptions or medical equipment and set them aside. If the house will sit empty, adjust the thermostat and check that the doors actually lock. Grab the mail or forward it so bills and account statements don't pile up in an open box.

Why first: these are the things that get lost, stolen, or damaged in the gap between the death and the day a court officially puts someone in charge. That gap can be weeks. Nobody has legal authority yet, so common sense is your only tool — use it.

Do not start giving away belongings, paying off debts, or closing accounts yet. I know the impulse is to be helpful and tidy. Resist it. Once someone is legally appointed, those actions have to happen in a specific order, and undoing an early mistake is harder than waiting.

2. Find the death certificates you'll need (within the first week)

Order certified copies of the death certificate. The funeral home or crematory usually handles the first order for you; if not, your county vital records office does.

Get 10 to 15 certified copies. Banks, insurers, and the court each want an original certified copy, not a photocopy, and requesting more later costs time you'd rather spend elsewhere. Ten to fifteen covers most estates without waste.

3. Understand who the state puts in charge (this is the big one)

Here's the part people don't expect. With no will, there's no named executor — the person a will would have chosen to settle the estate. Instead, the court appoints an administrator (some states say "personal representative"). Same job, different title: this is the person legally authorized to gather assets, pay debts, and distribute what's left.

The state has a priority list for who gets to be administrator. The exact order varies by state — check your state court's self-help page or probate statute — but it commonly runs roughly like this:

The surviving spouse
Adult children
Parents
Siblings
More distant relatives

The person highest on that list has first right to ask the court for the job. If they don't want it, they can decline, and the right passes down.

One warning worth its own line: if two relatives at the same level both want the role — say, three adult children — the court has to sort it out, and that's where families get stuck for months. If you can agree among yourselves who will serve before anyone files, do it. A short, honest conversation now saves a legal fight later.

4. Open the estate with the probate court (weeks 2–4)

The administrator gets their authority from the local probate court — the court that oversees settling estates. You file a petition asking to be named administrator.

Bring: the death certificate, a list of the known heirs and their addresses, and a rough inventory of what the person owned and owed. You don't need exact numbers yet; an honest estimate is fine to start.

The court may require a bond — an insurance policy that protects the heirs if the administrator mishandles money. Whether a bond is required, and whether it can be waived, varies by state, so check your state court's self-help page or probate statute; budget for the premium if one applies (it's based on the size of the estate).

When the court signs off, it issues letters of administration — the document that proves you have legal authority to act for the estate. This is the paper banks and companies actually respond to. Order several certified copies of it while you're there, same logic as the death certificates.

5. Figure out what's in the estate — and what skips it entirely (weeks 4–8)

Not everything the person owned goes through probate, and this surprises people every time.

Skips probate (goes straight to a named person):

Life insurance with a living beneficiary
Retirement accounts (401(k), IRA) with a named beneficiary
Bank accounts marked "payable on death"
Property held jointly with right of survivorship
Assets in a living trust

Goes through probate (the administrator handles these):

Solely owned bank accounts with no beneficiary
Real estate in the person's name alone
Vehicles, furniture, personal belongings
Any account where the named beneficiary already died

Make two lists as you go. It clarifies fast how much of the work actually runs through the court versus how much resolves with a phone call and a death certificate. Often the biggest assets — insurance, retirement — skip probate entirely, which lightens the load considerably.

6. Notify creditors and pay debts in the right order (months 2–6)

Once you're administrator, part of the job is settling debts before anyone inherits. Many states make you publish a notice to creditors — a public announcement giving anyone owed money a window to file a claim; the exact requirement and the length of that window vary by state, so check your state court's self-help page or probate statute.

Pay debts in the priority your state sets, not the order bills arrive — the exact order varies by state, so check your state court's self-help page or probate statute. It commonly puts funeral costs, estate administration expenses, and taxes first, then everything else. Here's the relief in that: if the estate can't cover every debt, the heirs are not personally on the hook for the shortfall. The debt dies with the estate. Don't pay a credit card out of your own pocket because you feel you should. You almost never should.

If a debt collector pressures you personally, tell them you're the administrator, the estate is in probate, and they may file a claim with the court. Then stop talking.

7. Distribute what's left by the state's formula (months 6+)

After debts and taxes are settled, whatever remains goes to the heirs — but by the state's formula, not by anyone's sense of fairness.

This is intestacy's sharpest edge. A surviving spouse might split the estate with the deceased's children, even from a prior relationship. An unmarried long-term partner typically gets nothing. Stepchildren who were never adopted usually get nothing. It can feel wrong, and sometimes it is wrong by any human measure — but the administrator's duty is to follow the formula, not fix it.

Get the distribution plan in writing, have the court approve it, and get signed receipts from each heir. That paperwork closes the estate and protects you from a claim later that someone was shorted.

When to hire a professional

You can do a lot of this yourself. Here's where the money is genuinely worth it.

Hire a probate attorney when:

Heirs disagree about who inherits or who should be administrator
The estate owns a business, or real estate in more than one state
There are more debts than assets, or a possible lawsuit
You're not sure whether a document counts as a valid will
The formula produces a result that could get contested (blended families, estranged relatives)

A quiet, well-organized estate with cooperative heirs and modest assets can often move through probate with light professional help — an hour with an attorney to check your filing, plus a tax preparer at the end.

For scale: on average, families spend around $13,000 and 13 to 20 months settling an estate (source). Knowing that going in helps you budget your time and money honestly instead of being blindsided halfway through.

Hire an accountant or tax preparer if the estate has to file its own tax return. And if you ever feel out of your depth, that feeling is information. Pay someone for two hours of clarity rather than losing two months to a mistake.

If it would help to keep every document, deadline, and heir in one steady place, our Executor's Playbook was built for exactly this walk — a plain checklist for the person who ended up in charge without asking to be. It won't do the grieving for you, but it'll make sure nothing slips while you do.

You're doing a hard, generous thing. Take it in order, one section at a time, and it will get done.