Estate Planning · Probate Law
If you die in Maryland without a valid will, Maryland law determines who inherits your property. This is called dying “intestate.” Rather than following your wishes, your estate is distributed according to Maryland’s intestacy laws, which establish who is entitled to inherit and how much each person receives. Md. Code, Estates & Trusts § 3-101 et seq.
The result may be very different from what you may have intended. For example, an unmarried partner may receive nothing, even if you lived together for many years, unless other arrangements have been made. In a blended family, a surviving spouse may have to share the estate with children from a prior relationship. And if you have minor children, dying without a will also means that you have not left written instructions identifying the person you would want to serve as their guardian.
Maryland changed its intestacy laws significantly in 2023, particularly the rules affecting surviving spouses and children. Understanding these rules is important both when planning your own estate and when handling the estate of a family member who died without a will.
Under Maryland's intestacy statute (§ 3-101 et seq.), who inherits depends on your family structure at the time of death. The statute works through a hierarchy, starting with the people closest to you and working outward.
Spouse and no descendants: Your spouse inherits everything. (§ 3-102(a))
Spouse and minor children: Your spouse inherits half. The children share the other half equally, regardless of whether the children are from this marriage or a prior one. (§ 3-102(b))
Spouse and adult children — all shared with the surviving spouse: Under the 2023 reform, your spouse now inherits the entire estate. Before October 2023, the old rule split the estate between the spouse and those children. That split is gone for this scenario.
Spouse and adult children — at least some not shared with the surviving spouse: Your spouse takes the first $100,000, plus half of whatever remains. The children divide the rest. This is a significant improvement over the pre-2023 rule, which gave the spouse only $40,000 off the top.
The 2023 changes were broadly favorable to surviving spouses in blended-family situations. But they also mean that adult children from a prior relationship may receive nothing if the decedent left an estate under $100,000 — the spouse takes it all in that scenario.
Under current Md. Code, Estates & Trusts § 3-104, if there is no surviving issue, spouse, or registered domestic partner, the estate goes first to parents, then to the descendants of the parents (which includes siblings and their descendants), and then through the grandparent lines. If there is ultimately no surviving blood relative entitled to inherit under § 3-104, qualifying stepchildren—and in some circumstances their descendants—can inherit. The Maryland Supreme Court confirmed this interpretation in 2025.
Maryland law now allows unmarried couples to register their domestic partnership with the Register of Wills. If a registered domestic partner dies without a will, the surviving partner generally has the same inheritance rights as a surviving spouse under Maryland's intestacy laws. Md. Code, Estates & Trusts § 3-102.
Registration matters. If you have lived with your partner for many years but are neither married nor registered as domestic partners, your partner does not automatically inherit from you under Maryland's intestacy laws. Without a will or other estate planning, your property may instead pass to your children, parents, siblings, or other relatives.
To inherit under Maryland's intestacy statute, a person must survive the decedent by at least 30 days. This rule prevents assets from passing to someone who dies in the same accident or shortly after, only to be distributed through that person's own estate.
Having a will is important, but it does not necessarily determine who receives everything you own. A will generally controls assets that are in your individual name when you die. Other assets may pass directly to someone else based on how the account or property is titled.
For example, life insurance and retirement accounts generally pass to the beneficiaries you named on those accounts. Jointly owned property with a right of survivorship generally passes to the surviving owner, and assets held in a properly funded trust pass according to the terms of the trust.
This is why estate planning involves more than simply preparing a will. An old beneficiary designation or improperly titled account can cause an asset to pass to someone you no longer intended to receive it. A good estate plan looks at the entire picture—your will, trust, beneficiary designations, real estate, and financial accounts—to make sure they all work together.
Blended families. Dying without a will can create unexpected results for families with children from prior relationships. If you leave a surviving spouse and a minor child, your spouse generally receives one-half of the intestate estate and the remaining half passes to your children. If all of your children are adults but at least one is from a prior relationship, your spouse generally receives the first $100,000 plus one-half of the remaining estate, with the balance passing to your children. Md. Code, Estates & Trusts §§ 3-102, 3-103.
These rules may be very different from what you would choose for your family. A properly prepared estate plan allows you to decide how to provide for your spouse while also protecting an inheritance for your children.
If you have minor children, a will does more than determine who inherits your property. It also allows you to name the person you would want to serve as guardian of your children if both parents are unable to care for them. Without that designation, the court may ultimately have to decide who should serve as guardian based on the best interests of the child.
There is also the question of who will manage a child's inheritance. Minor children generally cannot manage inherited property themselves, so additional arrangements may be necessary to hold and manage those assets on their behalf. A properly prepared estate plan can allow you to choose who will manage the inheritance and determine when and how your child will receive it, rather than leaving those decisions to the default rules under Maryland law.
Maryland's intestacy laws do not automatically provide an inheritance for an unmarried partner who has not registered as a domestic partner. Even if you have lived together for decades, your partner may receive nothing from your probate estate if you die without a will. Instead, your property may pass to your children, parents, siblings, or other relatives under Maryland law.
If you want to provide for an unmarried partner, estate planning is particularly important. A will, trust, beneficiary designations, and proper ownership of jointly held assets can be used together to make sure your property passes to the person you intend to receive it.
Maryland imposes a 10% inheritance tax on transfers to non-exempt beneficiaries. Spouses, children, parents, grandparents, siblings, and lineal descendants are exempt. Nieces, nephews, friends, and cousins are not. Dying intestate with estate assets passing to a nephew means that nephew pays 10% of whatever they inherit to the State of Maryland.
Probate is a public process. Documents filed with the Register of Wills may disclose what you owned, the value of your assets, who your beneficiaries are, and how your estate is distributed. That means personal financial information that most families would ordinarily consider private can become part of a public record.
For many families, avoiding that public disclosure is an important reason to create a trust. Assets held in a properly funded trust can generally be distributed privately, without putting the details of your family's finances and inheritance into the public probate record. This can be particularly important when there are substantial assets, family conflicts, unequal distributions among beneficiaries, or simply a desire to keep personal financial matters private.
Without a will, the court appoints an administrator (rather than an executor named by the decedent) to handle the estate. Typically, that's the surviving spouse, or the person who would be the primary heir under the intestacy statute. The administrator has the same responsibilities as an executor: inventorying assets, notifying creditors, paying debts, filing the final tax returns, and distributing what's left.
Maryland regular estate administration requires the estate to stay open at least six months for creditor claims under § 8-103. A realistic timeline is 9 to 12 months for straightforward estates, longer if there are disputes among heirs.
A will allows you to decide who will inherit your property, who will be responsible for administering your estate, and who you would want to care for your minor children. Without a will, Maryland law makes many of those decisions for you, and the result may not reflect what you would have chosen.
For many families, a will is an important part of an estate plan. But a will alone may not be enough, particularly if you have a blended family, minor children, a beneficiary with special needs, significant assets, or property in more than one state. A properly funded revocable living trust can help avoid probate, preserve your family's privacy, and give you greater flexibility over how and when your assets are distributed to your beneficiaries.
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