Updated August 3, 2026. Quick answer: the risk people worry about — the state taking everything — is rare. The risk that actually happens is that intestacy finds a relative you would never have chosen, because the statute reaches much further than people expect and it does not ask whether you knew them.
How far the statute reaches
California Probate Code 6402: after the surviving spouse’s share under 6401, the order runs through issue and descendants, then parents, then issue of parents (siblings and their descendants), then grandparents, then issue of grandparents, then in limited circumstances issue of a predeceased spouse (6402.5), and finally next of kin in equal degree.
Probate Code 6800: where a decedent leaves no heirs capable of taking, the estate escheats to the State of California at the time of death.
Only California’s statute was read. The general framing is illustrated by one state, not confirmed across states. Your own state’s order will differ in detail; the shape is the point.
The real risk, stated plainly
Escheat is structurally rare precisely because intestacy is written to find a taker as far out as next of kin. The realistic risk for someone without close family is NOT that the state takes the estate – it is that a distant, estranged or simply unknown relative inherits it, because they are next in the statutory line and not because anyone chose them.
Read the California order again with that in mind. Issue of grandparents means first cousins. Next of kin in equal degree reaches further still. A person with no spouse and no children very often has a cousin they have not spoken to in forty years, and the statute is entirely content to hand them the estate.
So the honest framing is not “write a will or the state gets it”. It is write a will or a stranger you are related to gets it. That is both more accurate and, for most people, more motivating.
What a will actually decides here
- Who takes — friends, a partner you never married (who inherits nothing by default), charities, or the relatives you would have chosen from among those the statute would pick anyway.
- Who administers it. With no obvious family executor this is a real decision, and an institution is a legitimate answer. What that costs.
- What happens to the animals. A pet is property and passes with the estate; a specific provision and a named caretaker with funds is the difference between a plan and a hope.
- Charitable gifts, which for someone with no bequest motive can be the point of the exercise rather than the remainder. How the deduction side works.
The designations that outrank the will
Retirement accounts, life insurance and payable-on-death accounts pass by beneficiary designation regardless of what the will says. For someone whose designations were set decades ago and never revisited, this is where the estate actually goes — often to a parent who has since died, or a former spouse. How payable-on-death accounts behave.
Checking them takes an afternoon and overrides everything else on this page.
If there is no will yet
With no spouse and no children, intestacy hands the estate to whoever is next in the statutory line — frequently a relative you have never met. A will is what replaces that default with a choice. LawDepot builds a state-specific will executed under your own state’s witnessing rules; for a large estate or a charitable plan with tax consequences, see a lawyer.
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General information drawn from IRS, Medicare, HUD and state statute and regulation, not legal, tax or financial advice. Continuing-care law is state law and differs materially between states; every figure here is year-labelled and every source named. Fiduciary licensing, executor compensation and intestacy are STATE law and differ materially between states. Fee figures are quoted from published schedules on the dates stated and change without notice; nothing here is a substitute for advice on your own facts.