Intestate succession Arizona law surprises a lot of surviving spouses, because most people assume a spouse automatically inherits everything. That’s only true in some cases. Under A.R.S. § 14-2102, whether a spouse gets the whole estate or only a slice of it depends on one specific fact: whether the deceased person had children from a relationship outside the current marriage. That single detail changes the outcome more than almost anything else in the statute.
Intestate succession Arizona: the surviving spouse’s share
If every surviving child is also a child of the surviving spouse — or there are no surviving children at all — the spouse takes the entire intestate estate. Both the decedent’s separate property and their half of the community property pass to the spouse. Since the spouse already owned the other half of the community property outright, this scenario leaves the surviving spouse with everything. The math changes if the decedent has a surviving child who isn’t also the spouse’s child, most commonly a child from a prior relationship. In that case, the spouse gets only half of the decedent’s separate property and none of the decedent’s community property share. The other half of the separate property and all of the community property share go to that child instead.
Who inherits if there’s no surviving spouse
Under A.R.S. § 14-2103, Arizona’s intestate priority ladder runs to descendants first — children, or their own descendants if a child has already died. If there are no surviving descendants, the estate passes to the decedent’s parents. If neither parent survives, it goes to the descendants of the parents, meaning siblings and their children. Only if no one in that entire chain survives does the estate escheat to the state, and that outcome is genuinely rare in practice.
What intestate succession Arizona rules don’t do
Intestate succession has no concept of intent. It doesn’t matter that the decedent always said a particular friend or stepchild should inherit — if that person isn’t a legal heir under the statute, they get nothing. Unmarried partners receive no automatic share no matter how long the relationship lasted. Stepchildren who were never legally adopted don’t count as heirs unless the statute’s specific adoption provisions apply. This is the gap a will exists to close: it lets someone override the default statutory plan and name whoever they actually want.
Community property makes Arizona’s rules different from most states
Because Arizona is a community-property state, intestate succession here works differently than in states that don’t recognize community property. A surviving spouse in Arizona already owns half of the marital community outright before the succession statute even applies — the statute only decides what happens to the decedent’s half of the community property, plus their separate property. That’s a meaningfully different starting point than a common-law state, where a surviving spouse typically has to inherit a share of everything through the succession statute rather than already owning half of it.
The bottom line
Dying without a will in Arizona doesn’t mean an estate goes unclaimed — it means the legislature’s default plan takes over instead of the decedent’s actual wishes. For a simple, first-marriage family with no children from prior relationships, that default plan often matches what the person would have wanted anyway. For blended families, it frequently doesn’t, and the gap between what the statute delivers and what the family expected only becomes visible after someone has already died — which is exactly the scenario a will is meant to prevent. The probate process still has to run either way; a will doesn’t skip probate, it just tells the court who gets what once the process starts.
Frequently asked questions
Only if every surviving child is also the spouse’s child, or there are no surviving children. If the decedent has a child from another relationship, the spouse gets just half of the separate property and none of the community property share.
The estate passes to surviving descendants first, then to parents if there are none, then to the descendants of the parents. The estate only escheats to the state if no one in that chain survives.
No. Intestate succession only recognizes legal heirs defined by statute, so an unmarried partner receives no automatic share regardless of how long the relationship lasted.
Because Arizona is a community-property state, a surviving spouse already owns half of the marital community before the succession statute applies. It only decides what happens to the decedent’s half plus their separate property.
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Get MatchedKeep reading: Arizona’s small estate affidavit — which can let some estates skip probate entirely — and revocable living trusts are covered in separate guides in this series. For how the probate process itself works, see Arizona Probate Process, and for the will-vs-trust comparison, see Wills vs Trusts Arizona.
This article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Intestate succession outcomes depend on your specific family structure — consider speaking with a licensed Arizona probate attorney about your situation.