Clear Money Guide
What this guide covers
A quick view of the questions and evidence developed below.
Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: in a blended family with no will, the surviving spouse almost never “gets everything” — and the generic formula articles quote is wrong twice over. The Uniform Probate Code’s own text (§2-102(4)) cuts the spouse’s share specifically when the decedent leaves children who are not the survivor’s children — the exact blended-family case — and fewer than half the states even use the UPC formula. The rest split along a deeper fault line most articles never mention: whether your state is community-property or common-law changes the mechanics, not just the percentages.
The two systems, in one paragraph each
Community-property states (Arizona, California, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin): the survivor already OWNS half of everything acquired during the marriage — that half never enters the estate at all. Intestacy divides only the decedent’s half, and in several of these states the decedent’s community half passes to the spouse anyway — so the fight in a blended family is almost always over separate property: the house bought before the marriage, the inheritance kept apart. The mechanics, fully.
Common-law states: everything titled to the decedent is in play, and the spouse’s share follows the state’s formula — a dollar amount plus a fraction in UPC states, a flat fraction in others — with the blended-family reduction clause doing exactly what it sounds like. The children from the prior relationship take the remainder; if they are minors, through a court process nobody enjoys.
What actually decides most cases: the title, not the statute
Intestacy only reaches the PROBATE estate. Joint tenancy, TOD deeds, and beneficiary designations pass outside the split entirely — which is why the practical questions are who gets the house and whether it is separate property to begin with, and why stepchildren — who inherit nothing by default — depend completely on paperwork someone must actually do. What a will costs instead of all this: the honest number.
If you are planning your own estate
The shares set out above are the default the statute applies when there is no will, and they are rarely what a blended family would have chosen. Writing one replaces that default outright; LawDepot builds a state-specific last will and testament.
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A surviving spouse can often override the will: the spousal elective share is not a flat one-third — it slides with the length of the marriage, up to 50%, and it applies to an augmented estate that reaches revocable trusts, POD/TOD accounts and life insurance.
Remarriage changes this by operation of law: a workplace plan pays your current spouse unless that spouse signs a witnessed consent — a prenup cannot do it, and a previous spouse’s consent does not carry over. Your IRA, meanwhile, still pays whoever is on the form.
The rule underneath this page: when there is no will, the state’s intestacy statute decides — and the surviving spouse usually does not take everything. Dying without a will sets out what the statute governs, the order of inheritance, and how “by representation” is actually defined, quoted from the enacting text.