Intestate Succession: Definition and How It Works in California

By Eric Ridley, attorney, Ridley Law. Updated September 2026.

Intestate succession is the set of rules California uses to distribute a person’s estate when they die without a valid will, based on how closely surviving relatives are related to them.

How it works in California

Under Prob. Code, § 6401, a surviving spouse takes the entire intestate estate if the decedent left no surviving issue, parent, sibling, or issue of a deceased sibling. Prob. Code, § 6402 sets out how the estate divides among children, parents, siblings, and more distant relatives when a spouse either doesn’t survive or has to share with closer relatives. For a full walk-through of what happens with no will at all, see what happens if you die without a will in California.

The rules work through a fixed order of relatives. Children come before parents, parents come before siblings, and so on, with the estate going to the closest surviving category before anything reaches a more distant relative. Adopted children generally inherit the same as biological children; stepchildren generally don’t inherit unless a legal adoption took place.

Intestate succession only applies to property that a will or trust doesn’t already cover. A person can die with no will and still avoid intestate succession entirely if everything they owned was already titled in a living trust or passed by beneficiary designation.

Why it matters

For example, a woman dies without a will, survived by her husband and two adult children from an earlier marriage. Her husband takes all of the community property under Prob. Code, § 6401, but because she has surviving children, he shares her separate property with them under the same section. A family that assumes a surviving spouse always inherits the whole estate can be surprised by how the shares actually split. For more on how relatives are identified and ranked, see CA next of kin: who is it, inheritance rights.

Common mistakes

Assuming a surviving spouse automatically receives the entire estate regardless of who else survives. Overlooking a stepchild’s lack of inheritance rights absent a formal adoption. Waiting to plan because intestate succession feels like a fallback that probably won’t matter, when in practice it can produce a result no one in the family actually wanted.

Related terms

• Disclaimer: a way an heir can refuse an intestate share so it passes to the next person in line.
• Heir: the person intestate succession identifies and ranks.
• Letters of administration: the court order appointing someone to run an intestate estate.
• Per capita: one method for dividing a share among relatives at the same generation.
• Per stirpes: a method that divides a share by family branch; California’s intestacy rules use a generation-based method instead.
• Pretermitted heir: a child who receives an intestate-style share even though a will existed, because the will left them out by accident.
• Will: the document that, if valid, takes an estate out of intestate succession entirely.

Part of the California estate planning glossary. For the full treatment, see What Happens If You Die Without a Will in California.