What happens to your assets if you die without any family/will?
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When an individual with a will dies, their estate is distributed according to their will. It can be contested, but if it is notarized and written through the consultation of a lawyer, it is rare for any contest claims to succeed in court.
If an individual has no will, then the following will happen:
1. Everything is given to their spouse.
2. If an individual has no spouse (divorced, deceased, never married), everything is given to their legal children.
3. If they have no kids, everything is given to their parents. If they have grandkids or great grandkids and so on however, they fulfill the role of kids.
4. If they have no living parents, everything is given to their siblings, which can include half siblings.
* The laws will differ by state. Some have minimum estate payouts to certain people and some have outlines for specific situations like if there are multiple kids or lost family.
If they have no siblings, the state will investigate to find their next of kin. At this point, other parties who are not directly related to the deceased person (like a friend or mentor) can step in to try and claim some ownership of the estate through court. If they can make a case for why they deserve a chunk of the estate, the court may grant it to them. Otherwise if no party steps forth, the state will look through hospital records, immigration applications, military records, genetic tests, and contact the deceased person’s home country and inquire about kin there. There will always be someone who they are related to if you go back far enough, and once that person is found they will be given everything.
If the state has truly exhausted all resources available to them and *still* cannot find any next or kin, and no party steps in to try and claim ownership, then the estate is conferred back to the state. However, this is exceedingly rare due to the conditions mentioned above. The only situations in which this would apply is to foreigners who are estranged from their family back home and for people without proper citizen records.
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