One of the most common misconceptions in estate planning is that if someone dies without a will, everything automatically passes to the surviving spouse or children. While that may be true in some situations, it is far from a universal rule. Every state has enacted its own intestacy laws governing how assets are distributed when an individual dies without a valid will or trust. Those laws often reflect different public policy decisions regarding spouses, children, blended families, parents, siblings, and other heirs. As a result, two families with nearly identical circumstances may experience very different outcomes simply because one estate is administered in California while the other is administered in Michigan.
For families with connections to both states, these differences deserve careful attention. Individuals frequently relocate during retirement, maintain homes in multiple states, own investment property outside their primary residence, or have children living throughout the country. Unfortunately, many people never update their estate plan after relocating or never prepare one at all. When that occurs, the state’s intestacy laws effectively become the individual’s estate plan, regardless of whether those laws reflect the person’s actual wishes.
Understanding intestacy is important not because most people intend to rely upon it, but because it demonstrates why thoughtful estate planning remains one of the most valuable legal investments an individual can make. California and Michigan each provide detailed statutory rules governing intestate succession, but those rules are designed to create default outcomes rather than individualized estate plans. Families that understand these differences are generally better positioned to protect loved ones through proper planning rather than allowing state law to determine how their assets will ultimately be distributed.
Intestacy Laws Apply More Often Than People Realize
Many people assume intestacy affects only individuals who never considered estate planning. In reality, intestacy issues arise in numerous situations beyond the complete absence of a will. A will may be invalid because it was improperly executed. Beneficiaries may have predeceased the individual without appropriate contingency provisions. Newly acquired property may not have been addressed by existing estate planning documents. Families may relocate without updating older estate plans prepared under another state’s laws.
In each of these situations, some or all of the estate may ultimately be distributed according to state intestacy statutes rather than the decedent’s personal wishes. This often surprises family members who believed the decedent had already addressed estate planning years earlier.
California and Michigan both maintain detailed intestate succession statutes, but those laws cannot account for the unique dynamics of individual families. Business ownership, blended families, second marriages, stepchildren, charitable intentions, special needs beneficiaries, and unequal distributions among children generally require affirmative planning rather than reliance upon statutory defaults.
Intestacy should therefore be viewed as a legal safety net rather than a substitute for comprehensive estate planning.
Surviving Spouses May Not Always Receive the Entire Estate
One of the most surprising aspects of intestacy law involves the rights of surviving spouses. Many married couples assume that if one spouse dies without a will, the surviving spouse automatically inherits everything. While spouses often receive substantial protections under both California and Michigan law, the actual distribution depends upon numerous factors, including whether the decedent had children, whether those children were from the current marriage or a prior relationship, and how particular assets are characterized.
California’s community property system also affects the analysis in ways that differ significantly from Michigan. Community property principles frequently influence what property belongs to the surviving spouse before intestate succession laws are even applied. Michigan, operating under a separate property framework, approaches these questions differently.
Blended families often create additional complexity. Children from prior marriages, adopted children, and other family circumstances may affect how intestate estates are distributed. These statutory rules frequently produce outcomes that differ from what many families expected or intended.
Individuals should therefore avoid assuming that marriage alone guarantees a particular distribution of assets following death.
Blended Families Often Face the Greatest Challenges
Modern families rarely fit neatly within traditional legal assumptions. Second marriages, blended families, children from prior relationships, unmarried partners, and extended family structures have become increasingly common. Unfortunately, intestacy statutes necessarily establish general rules that may not reflect these increasingly complex family dynamics.
For example, an individual may wish to provide for a surviving spouse while ultimately ensuring children from a prior marriage inherit family assets. Another individual may wish to benefit stepchildren who were raised as members of the family despite lacking formal legal adoption. Others may intend to provide unequal inheritances because one child has already received significant lifetime financial assistance or because another child has special needs requiring additional resources.
Intestacy statutes generally cannot accomplish these individualized objectives. Instead, they distribute assets according to predetermined statutory formulas regardless of the decedent’s personal relationships or intentions. Families often discover these limitations only after probate has already begun.
Estate planning becomes particularly valuable where family structures extend beyond the assumptions built into intestacy laws.
Business Owners Should Never Rely on Intestacy
For closely held businesses, intestacy often creates uncertainty at precisely the time stability is most needed. Business interests may pass to multiple heirs who have little experience managing the company, different financial priorities, or conflicting views regarding future operations. Existing owners, employees, customers, and lenders may likewise face uncertainty regarding who now possesses legal authority over the business.
California and Michigan both recognize business ownership as property subject to probate and intestate succession, but neither state’s intestacy laws are designed to preserve business continuity. Buy-sell agreements, trusts, succession plans, operating agreements, shareholder agreements, and coordinated estate planning generally provide far more effective solutions than allowing ownership transfers to occur solely through statutory inheritance rules.
Business owners should therefore view succession planning as an essential component of overall estate planning rather than a separate legal project. Waiting until later often increases both legal complexity and operational uncertainty.
The value of a successful business frequently depends upon planning completed long before succession becomes necessary.
Multi-State Families Need Coordinated Estate Planning
Families with assets or connections in both California and Michigan should recognize that estate planning involves much more than preparing a simple will. Property ownership, trusts, beneficiary designations, business interests, retirement accounts, real estate, and probate procedures all require coordination when multiple states become involved.
An estate plan prepared while living in Michigan may remain legally valid after relocating to California, but that does not necessarily mean it continues producing the intended results. Likewise, California estate planning documents should be reviewed whenever families establish significant property or business interests in Michigan. Periodic review helps ensure the estate plan remains consistent with current assets, family relationships, and applicable state law.
Multi-state estate planning also reduces the likelihood that unintended intestacy issues will arise because newly acquired assets or changed family circumstances were never incorporated into older planning documents.
The strongest estate plans anticipate change rather than assuming today’s circumstances will remain constant indefinitely.
Intestacy Laws Are a Default Plan, Not a Personalized Plan
California and Michigan each have carefully developed intestacy statutes designed to distribute property fairly when individuals die without valid estate planning documents. Those laws serve an important purpose, but they are necessarily general in nature. They cannot account for unique family relationships, charitable intentions, business succession goals, tax planning, special needs beneficiaries, or the countless personal decisions that make every family different.
The practical lesson is straightforward. If an individual wishes to decide who inherits assets, who administers the estate, how beneficiaries receive property, or how family wealth is preserved, those decisions should be made through comprehensive estate planning rather than leaving them to state law. Intestacy statutes provide default answers. Estate planning provides personal ones.
For families with ties to both California and Michigan, thoughtful planning becomes even more important because differences between the two states may produce outcomes that vary significantly depending upon where probate ultimately occurs. Individuals who review their estate plans periodically, particularly after relocating, acquiring substantial assets, remarrying, or experiencing significant family changes, are generally better positioned to ensure their wishes are carried out while minimizing future disputes among surviving family members.
Estate planning ultimately allows individuals to make these decisions themselves rather than allowing the legislature of any state to make them on their behalf.
► About the Author
Rabeh M. A. Soofi is the Managing Attorney of Axis Legal Counsel and advises individuals, families, business owners, investors, and executives on estate planning, probate administration, trust planning, asset protection, and business succession matters. Her practice focuses on helping clients preserve wealth, minimize risk, protect family assets, and implement long-term succession strategies for closely held businesses and investment holdings. Rabeh regularly counsels clients on wills, trusts, probate proceedings, fiduciary responsibilities, wealth transfer planning, and complex estate-related legal issues. Through Axis Legal Counsel, she provides strategic legal guidance designed to protect assets, reduce future disputes, and support multigenerational planning objectives.
► About Axis Legal Counsel
Axis Legal Counsel is a business and estate planning law firm that advises individuals, families, entrepreneurs, investors, and business owners on estate planning, probate administration, trust planning, asset protection, and business succession matters. The firm assists clients with wills, trusts, probate proceedings, fiduciary representation, wealth transfer strategies, and long-term planning designed to preserve assets and protect family legacies. Axis Legal Counsel also counsels closely held businesses and high-net-worth individuals on succession planning, ownership transitions, risk management, and integrated legal strategies that align personal, family, and business objectives. The firm’s approach emphasizes proactive planning, practical solutions, and long-term wealth preservation.