If you are an unmarried person who dies intestate (without a valid will), the Texas statutes will determine how your property will be divided. In other words, your surviving descendants will inherit the entire estate in a manner set by the Texas statutes, which may not be the way you would have chosen to have your assets distributed.
When a single person without children dies intestate, the Texas Probate Code specifies that his estate will pass equally to his parents, if both are living. If only one parent is alive, and the deceased does not have any brothers or sisters, then his entire estate will pass to his surviving parent.
However, if he does have siblings, or descendants of siblings, then the surviving parent would receive only half of the estate, and the remaining one half would be divided among his siblings or their descendants. All of the decedent’s estate would pass to his siblings or their descendents if he has no surviving parents.
In cases where the deceased person has no surviving descendants, parents, siblings, or descendants of siblings, then the estate is divided into two halves, with one half passing to relatives on his mother’s side of the family, and the other one half passing to relatives on his father’s side.
If one side of the family has completely died out, the entire estate would pass to the surviving side of the family. On rare occasions, when an unmarried person dies without any surviving heir, his estate will pass to the State of Texas.
If that doesn’t sound like the way you’d like your assets distributed after your death, you need a will.
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