Intestate succession

Where the statute uses it: Minn. Stat. § 524.2-101

What it means

Intestacy is not all-or-nothing. Section 524.2-101 defines the intestate estate as a remainder, which is how one estate can be part testate and part intestate at the same time.

The intestate estate of the decedent consists of any part of the decedent's estate not allowed to the decedent's spouse or descendants under sections 524.2-402, 524.2-403, and 524.2-404, and not disposed of by will. The intestate estate passes by intestate succession to the decedent's heirs as prescribed in this chapter, except as modified by the decedent's will.

The closing clause — “except as modified by the decedent’s will” — is the sleeper. Paragraph (b) lets a decedent use a will to expressly exclude or limit an individual’s or a class’s right to take by intestate succession, and if that person survives, the share passes as if that individual had disclaimed an intestate share. A will can disinherit from an intestate estate without disposing of it.

The order itself is short. Under § 524.2-102 the surviving spouse takes the entire intestate estate where no descendant survives, or where all of the decedent’s surviving descendants are also the spouse’s and the spouse has no other surviving descendant; otherwise the spouse takes the first $225,000 plus half the balance. What the spouse does not take passes under § 524.2-103 to descendants by representation, then to parents, then to descendants of parents, then to grandparents and their descendants split between the paternal and maternal sides, then to the next of kin in equal degree. If nobody in article 2 takes, § 524.2-105 sends the intestate estate to the state.

Where the word shows up

In the sentence a trust seminar rarely finishes: dying without a will does not mean the state takes the money. Section 524.2-105 is the last line of a list that runs through spouse, descendants, parents, siblings and their issue, grandparents and their issue, and next of kin. Escheat is where the list ends, not where it starts.