Dying without a will in Kentucky

A person who dies without a valid will dies “intestate,” and Kentucky statutes decide who inherits. The General Assembly rewrote these rules effective July 15, 2026, putting the surviving spouse first in line. Earlier deaths may be governed by the former rules.

Who inherits

Real estate now passes in this order:

• Surviving spouse. The spouse takes everything if the person left no descendants, or if all of the person’s descendants are also the spouse’s descendants and the spouse has no other descendants. The spouse takes one-half if the person left a descendant who is not the spouse’s, or if the spouse has a descendant who is not the deceased person’s.
• Children. Whatever does not go to a spouse goes to the children, with the descendants of a deceased child taking that child’s share.
• Parents, then brothers and sisters and their descendants.
• Grandparents, then aunts and uncles and their descendants, then stepchildren.
• The state, if none of these relatives survive.

Personal property, such as money and vehicles, goes to the same people in the same shares after funeral expenses, administration costs and debts are paid.

Other rights of a surviving spouse

The surviving spouse also has the interest that older statutes call dower or curtesy. It includes a life interest in one-third of real estate the deceased spouse owned during the marriage but not at death, unless that right was given up, and an outright one-half of the surplus personal property. Under the 2026 law, that calculation counts certain assets that pass outside probate and credits what the spouse already received from them.

A surviving spouse, or the children if there is no spouse, may also ask the District Court to set apart up to $30,000 in personal property or money as an exemption.

Property that passes outside probate

Property held jointly with a right of survivorship, payable-on-death and transfer-on-death accounts, and assets with a named beneficiary generally pass directly to the surviving owner or beneficiary, not through the estate.

Administrators and small estates

Someone must apply to the District Court to be appointed administrator, the person who collects property, pays debts and distributes the rest. The court prefers the surviving spouse, then the others entitled to inherit. If no relative applies within 60 days of the death, the court may appoint a creditor or another person.

A full administration is not always required. The court may dispense with it when the $30,000 exemption, alone or with preferred claims the spouse or children have paid, equals or exceeds the estate’s assets. It may also do so when the estate owes no debts and all beneficiaries agree in writing, after notice to creditors is advertised.