Delaware Intestate Succession

Delaware answers the no-will question twice, once for money and once for land. 12 Del. C. § 502 gives a surviving spouse a share of the intestate personal estate, and in three of its four branches gives that spouse only a life estate in the real estate. Everything the spouse does not take passes under § 503.

Four things about that answer catch people who read a generic summary first. Delaware does not hand the house to a surviving spouse outright while issue or a parent survive. The $50,000 that most search results quote is measured against the personal estate alone. That $50,000 disappears in a blended family. And the rule that strips an inheritance from a killer lives in the accounting chapter rather than in chapter 5.

Every rule below was read on September 10, 2026 at delcode.delaware.gov, the State of Delaware's own publication of the Delaware Code. Section numbers sit beside each rule so you can check them yourself.

This page answers the distribution question, meaning who gets what. For how an estate is opened and closed, read the Delaware probate process.

What These Rules Reach

Dying without a will is called dying intestate. 12 Del. C. § 501 passes any part of the real or personal estate of a decedent not effectively disposed of by will to that person's heirs, as prescribed in the rest of chapter 5. The section covers two situations at once: somebody who left no will, and somebody whose will covered only part of what they owned.

These rules reach probate property. Anything that already names its own taker passes outside the estate and never touches § 502:

• real estate under a transfer-on-death deed recorded before the death (25 Del. C. ch. 2)
• securities registered in beneficiary form, which pass to the beneficiaries who survive all owners and fall back into the estate where no beneficiary survives (12 Del. C. § 807)
• insurance, pension, bonus, stock option and other employee benefit proceeds payable to a named person, trust or corporation (12 Del. C. § 1901(c))
• land held in joint tenancy with a right of survivorship, or by a married couple as tenants by the entirety
• anything already titled in a trust

Delaware writes that carve-out unusually plainly. 12 Del. C. § 1901(c) says the designated recipient takes the death benefit "as against the claim of any personal representative, creditor, legatee or next of kin of the decedent", and keeps the benefit out of the inventory the administrator files.

Delaware refuses to read a survivorship right into a deed

25 Del. C. § 701 is the sentence that decides whether a house sits in the estate at all. No joint tenancy in lands may be held or claimed under any grant, devise or conveyance made to persons other than executors or trustees "unless the premises ... are expressly granted, devised or conveyed to such persons, to be held as joint tenants and not as tenants in common."

So a Delaware deed naming two owners without those express words leaves each of them an undivided share, and the share belonging to the person who died passes under § 502 and § 503. Married couples are the exception worth checking, because Delaware statutes assume a couple can hold land by the entirety: 12 Del. C. § 703 and 12 Del. C. § 2322(d) each set rules for property held by tenants by the entirety. Which estate a particular deed created is a question for a Delaware lawyer, and the answer decides whether the house belongs to the estate or to the survivor.

The transfer-on-death deed reached Delaware in December 2025

25 Del. C. ch. 2, the Uniform Real Property Transfer on Death Act, arrived through 85 Del. Laws, c. 212. Section 203 applies the chapter to a transfer on death deed made before, on, or after December 4, 2025, by a transferor dying on or after December 4, 2025, and § 207 makes the deed nontestamentary, so the property never enters the intestate estate.

Two conditions ride along with it. Under § 213(a)(2) the beneficiary's interest is contingent on surviving the transferor and lapses if the beneficiary dies first, which drops the property back into the estate. Under § 215 the estate may enforce liability against the transferred property when the probate estate falls short of an allowed claim or a statutory allowance, and a proceeding to do that must begin no later than 8 months after the death.

The administrator never takes possession of the real estate

12 Del. C. § 1902(b) states that nothing in that section gives an executor or administrator any right of possession of the real estate, and asks only that a personal representative who is in possession keep the premises in tenantable repair out of the rents. Delaware land passes at death to the people named in § 502 and § 503, and it stays with them unless the estate needs it.

The estate can still need it. 12 Del. C. § 2701 lets the personal representative petition the Court of Chancery of the county where the land sits for an order to sell the whole or part of it when the personal estate will not pay the debts, on at least 10 days written notice to the parties interested and to the tenants in possession.

The Surviving Spouse's Share

12 Del. C. § 502 runs four branches. Read them in order and stop at the first one that fits the family.

Three features of that table decide most Delaware estates, and all three surprise people.

The land is treated apart from everything else. Three of the four branches give a surviving spouse a life estate in the intestate real estate and no more. A life estate is the right to hold and use the property for the rest of that person's life. The heirs who take under § 503 own the remainder from the date of death, which means a clean sale needs the life tenant and the remainder owners acting together. A page that says a Delaware spouse inherits the house is describing a rule Delaware does not have.

The $50,000 is measured against the personal estate. Sections 502(2) and 502(3) both read "the first $50,000 of the intestate personal estate", so bank balances, investments held outside a beneficiary registration, vehicles and household goods count toward it and the house does not. Delaware nailed that point down on purpose. The last amendment to § 502, 60 Del. Laws, c. 199, § 6, left the dollar figure alone and added the words "of the intestate personal estate" after it in § 502(3). Nothing in the section indexes the amount, so it has not moved with inflation since.

The $50,000 disappears in a blended family. Section 502(4) gives a spouse half the intestate personal estate and the life estate, with no first-dollar amount, the moment one surviving child is not also that spouse's child. Delaware asks whose children they are, and the answer moves real money.

Work the numbers. A woman dies intestate in New Castle County leaving a husband, two children who are also his, a house titled in her name alone, and $120,000 of bank accounts and personal property after debts. Section 502(3) applies. Her husband takes the first $50,000, plus half of the $70,000 balance, so $85,000. The two children divide the remaining $35,000. Her husband holds a life estate in the house and the two children hold the remainder.

Change one fact. One of the two children is from her first marriage. Section 502(4) now applies. Her husband takes half the personal estate, $60,000, with no first $50,000, and the children divide the other $60,000. The single fact of a child from an earlier marriage moved $25,000.

Change it again. She left no children and no living parent. Section 502(1) applies, and her husband takes the whole estate, house included, outright. Her siblings take nothing.

The intestate share is a different question from what a spouse may claim against a will. For that, read what the surviving spouse can claim, which covers the elective share and the deadline that goes with it.

Who Takes the Rest

12 Del. C. § 503(a) sets the order for everything that does not pass to a surviving spouse, and for the whole estate where no spouse survives:

1. to the issue of the person who died, per stirpes
2. if no issue survive, to that person's parent or parents equally
3. if no issue and no parent survive, to the issue of that person's parents, per stirpes
4. if no issue, parent or issue of a parent survives, to the next of kin, and to the issue of a deceased next of kin, per stirpes

Two subsections sit under the ladder and matter more than their length suggests. Section 503(b) says property passing under the section to two or more people passes to them as tenants in common, so co-heirs each own an undivided share with no survivorship between them. Section 503(c) gives a person related to the decedent through more than one line of relationship a single share based on one line, the largest of them, and treats that person and their descendants as having predeceased with respect to the other lines.

The sibling class was rewritten in August 2025

Section 503(a)(3) used to read "brothers and sisters and the issue of each deceased brother or sister". It now reads "the issue of the decedent's parents", changed by 85 Del. Laws, c. 156, an act to amend Title 12 and Title 13 relating to the inheritance rights of issue and posthumous children, approved August 21, 2025. Any summary of Delaware intestacy written before that date describes the older class.

Delaware sets no cutoff by degree of relationship

Many states stop the search at a fixed degree of kindred and send the rest to the state. Delaware does not. Section 503(a)(4) says next of kin and the issue of a deceased next of kin, and Title 12 nowhere sets a degree limit on that class. Escheat under 12 Del. C. § 1101 arrives only when there are no heirs and no known kindred at all, which is a harder test than a degree cutoff.

Chapter 5 uses "per stirpes" and never defines it

Section 503 relies on the phrase three times and leaves it undefined. The only definition printed in Title 12 sits at 12 Del. C. § 3301(i)(4), which by its own terms applies to construing a governing instrument such as a will or a trust, not to intestate succession. Where a line has died out and the survivors sit at different generations, the division is a question for the Register of Wills handling the estate or for a Delaware attorney, not for arithmetic done at the kitchen table.

To see what §§ 502 and 503 produce for a particular family rather than in the abstract, including which of the four spousal branches applies and whether the $50,000 is in play, run the facts through the Delaware inheritance calculator.

Who Counts as a Child

Two sections answer this together. 12 Del. C. § 101(1) defines "child" for wills and intestate succession as an individual entitled to take as a child by intestate succession from the parent whose relationship is involved, and excludes a person who is only a stepchild, a foster child, a grandchild or a more remote descendant. So a stepchild the person who died raised for thirty years takes nothing under these rules unless adopted.

12 Del. C. § 508 then supplies the tests. A child is an individual of any age whose parentage is established under Chapter 8 of Title 13, and a parent is an individual who has established a parent-child relationship under that chapter. Three rules override that:

• An adopted person is the child of the adopting parent and not of the natural parent, except that adoption by the spouse of a natural parent leaves the relationship with that natural parent intact.
• A person born out of wedlock is a child of the mother, and a child of the father where legitimated under Chapter 13 of Title 13, where the natural parents went through a marriage ceremony even if the marriage was void, or where paternity is adjudicated before the father's death or established afterward by a preponderance of the evidence.
• Paternity established after the father's death does not let the father or his kindred inherit from or through the child unless the father openly treated the child as his and did not refuse to support the child.

The 120-Hour Rule, and the Older Chapter Beside It

12 Del. C. § 504 deems any person who fails to survive the decedent by 120 hours to have predeceased the decedent for the purposes of intestate succession. The same section reaches the harder case: where the time of either death cannot be determined and 120-hour survival cannot be established, the person is deemed to have failed the test. Section 504 closes by refusing to apply itself where the result would be a taking of the intestate estate by the State.

Delaware runs a separate and older chapter beside that one. 12 Del. C. §§ 701 through 707 turn on there being no sufficient evidence that two people died otherwise than simultaneously, with no 120-hour count anywhere in them. Section 703 splits property held by two joint tenants or tenants by the entirety half as if one survived and half as if the other did. Section 704 distributes life or accident insurance as if the insured survived the beneficiary. Section 706 stands the whole chapter down where a will, living trust, deed or insurance contract has made its own provision. Read § 504 for the intestate share and chapter 7 for the joint account, the deed and the policy.

Posthumous Children, Half Blood and Citizenship

Three one-sentence sections clear up three recurring questions.

12 Del. C. § 505 counts posthumous children, born alive, as though living at the death of their parent. 12 Del. C. § 506 gives relatives of the half blood the same share they would inherit if they were of the whole blood, with no ancestral-property exception anywhere in the chapter. 12 Del. C. § 507 disqualifies nobody from taking as an heir because that person, or a person through whom they claim, is or has been an alien.

A Lifetime Gift Counts Only on a Contemporaneous Writing

12 Del. C. § 509 treats property given during life to an heir as an advancement against that heir's share only where the person who died declared it so in a contemporaneous writing, or the heir acknowledged it in writing as an advancement. Family memory of what a parent said carries no weight here.

Where the writing exists, the property advanced is valued as of the time the heir came into possession or enjoyment or as of the death, whichever comes first. If the recipient dies before the person who made the gift, the advancement drops out of the calculation for that recipient's issue unless the writing says otherwise. Section 509 applies where the person died intestate as to all of the estate.

A Debt Owed to the Person Who Died Comes Off That Share

12 Del. C. § 510 charges a debt owed to the decedent against the intestate share of the debtor. If the debtor dies first, the debt is not counted in computing the intestate share of the debtor's issue. So an unpaid loan to one adult child reduces that child's share and does not follow the loan down to grandchildren.

Dower and Curtesy Are Gone

12 Del. C. § 511 abolishes the estates of dower and curtesy in one line. Chapter 5 then divides an intestate Delaware estate through § 502 and § 503 alone, with no community-property share anywhere in the chapter, so a reader who has been told a spouse automatically owns half is reading about another state's law. What a surviving spouse holds in intestate land is the § 502 life estate and nothing older.

The Slayer Rule Sits in the Accounting Chapter

Delaware puts its slayer rule at 12 Del. C. § 2322, inside chapter 23 on accounting and distribution rather than in chapter 5. Citing a chapter 5 section for it names the wrong law.

Section 2322(a)(3) defines a slayer as a person who pleads guilty or nolo contendere to, or is convicted of, an offense described in 11 Del. C. § 632, § 635 or § 636, excluding manslaughter under § 632 based on the mitigating circumstance of extreme emotional distress. The definition also reaches an equivalent conviction under the law of the United States, another state or a foreign country that requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and a person determined beyond a reasonable doubt by a court of competent jurisdiction to have committed a homicide against the decedent. Delaware sets the bar at that criminal standard and does not use a civil preponderance test here.

The consequences are spread across the section. Under § 2322(b) the slayer is deemed to have predeceased as to anything that would have passed under the statutes of descent and distribution or by statutory right as a surviving spouse. Under § 2322(d) and (e) property held with the decedent as tenants by the entirety or as joint tenants converts to a tenancy in common, half passing to the decedent's heirs. Section 2322(k) tells courts the section is not penal and should be construed broadly.

Turning Down an Inheritance

An heir may refuse a share. 12 Del. C. § 605 requires the disclaimer to be in writing, to declare the disclaimer and its extent, to describe the interest disclaimed, to be signed by the disclaimant or by somebody subscribing the name in the disclaimant's presence at that person's express direction before two witnesses competent to witness a Delaware will, and to be delivered in the form and manner set by § 612. A disclaimer may cover part of an interest, stated as a fraction, a percentage, a term of years or a lesser included interest.

12 Del. C. § 606(a)(2) supplies the timing that matters for an intestate estate: where the interest arose under the law of intestate succession, the disclaimer takes effect as of the time of the intestate's death. Section 605(f) adds that a disclaimer is not a transfer, assignment or release. A disclaimer changes who inherits, so run one past a Delaware attorney and a tax adviser before signing.

If No Heir Turns Up

12 Del. C. § 1101 escheats the estate of a person who dies intestate "without heirs or any known kindred who can inherit and hold the intestate's estate" to the State, subject to all legal demands on it. That outcome takes a court proceeding rather than a filing.

Section 1102 names the Escheator of the State as the Secretary of Finance or the Secretary's delegate. Section 1103 requires the Escheator to file suit in the Court of Chancery of the county where the property sits, to publish notice at least once a week for three consecutive weeks in a newspaper of general circulation there, to post similar notice at any real property the decedent owned, and to give notice by registered mail to anyone known to be in actual possession. Anybody with a valid claim to the property has 30 days from the third and final publication to file written notice of the claim with the Court.

Getting an Intestate Delaware Estate Settled

The statutes name the heirs. Somebody still has to collect the property and hand it over, and in Delaware that starts at a county office rather than a courthouse.

12 Del. C. § 1504(a) grants letters of administration for a domiciliary who left no admitted will through the Register of Wills of the county where that person was domiciled. 12 Del. C. § 1505(b)(1) then sets the order of who may serve: the first of these classes with a living member who is not under an incapacity takes the appointment, being the spouse, then children, then parents, then siblings of the whole and half blood. Where more than one person qualifies in that class, all of them who post the necessary bond and do not renounce serve together. Where the whole class fails to qualify or cannot agree in writing on a nominee, § 1505(c) sends the question to the Court of Chancery. Section 1505(d) hands the choice to the Register's discretion where no qualified class member exists, or where no petition for administration is filed within 60 days of the death.

The role carries the duties covered in who administers an intestate estate: collect the assets, handle claims, account to the Register of Wills and distribute the statutory shares.

Not every intestate estate needs a full administration. 12 Del. C. § 2306 lets a spouse, a grandparent, a lineal descendant of a grandparent and several other listed people take the personal estate on a sworn affidavit and distribute it under chapter 5, without any grant of letters. The affidavit has to attest that no personal representative has been appointed and none is pending, that 30 days have passed since the death, that the personal estate outside § 1901(b) and (c) property and outside jointly owned property does not exceed $50,000, that known debts are paid or provided for, that the surviving spouse's allowance under § 2308 has been paid, provided for, waived or expired, and that the decedent owned no Delaware real estate solely or as a tenant in common. The $50,000 figure was raised from $30,000 by 85 Del. Laws, c. 281, approved June 10, 2026.

Read the real estate condition closely. A Delaware family whose only asset is the house cannot use § 2306 at all, no matter how modest the personal estate.

One tax question comes up here and has a short answer. Delaware's estate tax chapter, 30 Del. C. ch. 15, was repealed by 81 Del. Laws, c. 52 effective January 1, 2018, so no Delaware estate tax applies to a death after that date. Federal filing obligations are separate and depend on the size of the estate.

If you are reading this because you would rather control the outcome than accept the statute's answer, Delaware will requirements covers signing, witnesses and what makes a Delaware will hold up.

When to Talk to a Delaware Lawyer

Plenty of Delaware intestate estates divide straight off § 502. Bring in a licensed Delaware attorney when:

• the estate holds real estate and the family needs to sell it while a surviving spouse holds the life estate
• a deed names two owners and does not say "as joint tenants and not as tenants in common", so half the property may sit in the estate
• one surviving child is not the surviving spouse's child, which moves the share under § 502(4)
• no spouse, issue or parent survives and the § 503(a)(3) or § 503(a)(4) class has to be built
• a person is related to the decedent through more than one line and § 503(c) applies
• a lifetime gift is claimed as an advancement and the writing under § 509 is disputed
• paternity was never adjudicated and § 508(3) is in play
• two family members died close together and the § 504 proof is contested
• a homicide charge is pending against somebody in line to inherit
• the personal estate will not cover the debts, so a § 2701 petition to sell the land is coming

This page organizes the statutory shares and the questions worth asking. Confirm anything that decides a particular estate with the Register of Wills for the county or with a licensed Delaware attorney.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who inherits if there is no will in Delaware?

12 Del. C. § 502 gives a surviving spouse the entire intestate estate only where no issue and no parent survive. Where a parent survives with no issue, or where every surviving child is also the spouse's child, the spouse takes the first $50,000 of the intestate personal estate, half the balance of that personal estate, and a life estate in the intestate real estate. Where any surviving child is not the spouse's child, the spouse takes half the personal estate and the life estate, with no $50,000. Everything the spouse does not take passes under § 503, first to the issue of the person who died per stirpes, then to parents, then to the issue of the parents, then to next of kin.

Does a Delaware surviving spouse inherit the house?

Only where no issue and no parent survive. In the other three branches of 12 Del. C. § 502 the spouse takes a life estate in the intestate real estate, which is the right to hold and use the property for life. The heirs who take under § 503 own the remainder from the date of death, so the house cannot be sold free and clear unless the life tenant and the remainder owners act together. 12 Del. C. § 1902(b) adds that the administrator has no right of possession of the real estate at all.

What is the $50,000 Delaware spousal share measured against?

The intestate personal estate alone. Both § 502(2) and § 502(3) read "the first $50,000 of the intestate personal estate", so the value of the house never counts toward it. The $50,000 also disappears under § 502(4), where any surviving child is not the surviving spouse's child. Nothing in the section indexes the amount for inflation, and the last amendment to § 502, 60 Del. Laws, c. 199, § 6, left the figure alone and added the words 'of the intestate personal estate' after it in § 502(3).

Does Delaware have a 120-hour survival rule?

Yes. 12 Del. C. § 504 treats a person who fails to survive the decedent by 120 hours as having predeceased the decedent for intestate succession, and it reaches the case where the order of two deaths cannot be established. The section does not apply where applying it would hand the estate to the State. Jointly held property, insurance proceeds and successive beneficiaries follow a separate and older chapter, 12 Del. C. §§ 701 through 707, which turns on insufficient evidence of survivorship rather than on a 120-hour count.

Do half brothers and half sisters inherit less in Delaware?

No. 12 Del. C. § 506 is a single sentence: relatives of the half blood inherit the same share they would inherit if they were of the whole blood. Delaware records no ancestral-property exception and no reduced share for the half blood anywhere in chapter 5.

Who inherits when no spouse, child or parent survives in Delaware?

12 Del. C. § 503(a)(3) passes the estate to the issue of the decedent's parents, per stirpes, which reaches siblings, nieces and nephews. 85 Del. Laws, c. 156, approved August 21, 2025, rewrote that class from "brothers and sisters and the issue of each deceased brother or sister". Where no issue of a parent survives, § 503(a)(4) goes to the next of kin and to the issue of a deceased next of kin, per stirpes. Delaware states no cutoff by degree of relationship.

What happens if no relative can be found in Delaware?

12 Del. C. § 1101 escheats the estate to the State where a person dies intestate without heirs or any known kindred who can inherit and hold the estate, subject to all legal demands on it. The State takes by court order rather than automatically. Under § 1102 the Escheator is the Secretary of Finance or a delegate, and § 1103 requires a suit in the Court of Chancery, notice published once a week for three consecutive weeks, and a 30-day window for anyone with a claim to file written notice with the Court.

Sources:

• Title: 12 Del. C. § 502, Share of spouse. Publisher: State of Delaware, Delaware Code Online. Publication Date: Accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title12/c005/index.html#502
• Title: 12 Del. C. § 503, Share of heirs other than surviving spouse. Publisher: State of Delaware, Delaware Code Online. Publication Date: Accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title12/c005/index.html#503
• Title: 12 Del. C. § 501, Intestate estate. Publisher: State of Delaware, Delaware Code Online. Publication Date: Accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title12/c005/index.html#501
• Title: 12 Del. C. § 504, Requirement that heir survive decedent for 120 hours. Publisher: State of Delaware, Delaware Code Online. Publication Date: Accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title12/c005/index.html#504
• Title: 12 Del. C. § 505, Posthumous children. Publisher: State of Delaware, Delaware Code Online. Publication Date: Accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title12/c005/index.html#505
• Title: 12 Del. C. § 506, Kindred of half blood. Publisher: State of Delaware, Delaware Code Online. Publication Date: Accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title12/c005/index.html#506
• Title: 12 Del. C. § 507, Alienage. Publisher: State of Delaware, Delaware Code Online. Publication Date: Accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title12/c005/index.html#507
• Title: 12 Del. C. § 508, Meaning of child and related terms for purposes of intestate succession. Publisher: State of Delaware, Delaware Code Online. Publication Date: Accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title12/c005/index.html#508
• Title: 12 Del. C. § 509, Advancements. Publisher: State of Delaware, Delaware Code Online. Publication Date: Accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title12/c005/index.html#509
• Title: 12 Del. C. § 510, Debts owed to decedent. Publisher: State of Delaware, Delaware Code Online. Publication Date: Accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title12/c005/index.html#510
• Title: 12 Del. C. § 511, Dower and curtesy abolished. Publisher: State of Delaware, Delaware Code Online. Publication Date: Accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title12/c005/index.html#511
• Title: 12 Del. C. § 101, Definitions. Publisher: State of Delaware, Delaware Code Online. Publication Date: Accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title12/c001/index.html#101
• Title: 12 Del. C. § 605, Power to disclaim; requisites and execution; when irrevocable. Publisher: State of Delaware, Delaware Code Online. Publication Date: Accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title12/c006/index.html#605
• Title: 12 Del. C. § 606, Disclaimer of interest in property. Publisher: State of Delaware, Delaware Code Online. Publication Date: Accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title12/c006/index.html#606
• Title: 12 Del. C. § 703, Joint tenants or tenants by the entirety. Publisher: State of Delaware, Delaware Code Online. Publication Date: Accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title12/c007/index.html#703
• Title: 12 Del. C. § 704, Insurance policies. Publisher: State of Delaware, Delaware Code Online. Publication Date: Accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title12/c007/index.html#704
• Title: 12 Del. C. § 706, Application of chapter. Publisher: State of Delaware, Delaware Code Online. Publication Date: Accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title12/c007/index.html#706
• Title: 12 Del. C. § 807, Ownership on death of owner. Publisher: State of Delaware, Delaware Code Online. Publication Date: Accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title12/c008/index.html#807
• Title: 12 Del. C. § 1101, Escheat of estates. Publisher: State of Delaware, Delaware Code Online. Publication Date: Accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title12/c011/sc01/index.html#1101
• Title: 12 Del. C. § 1102, Escheator of the State. Publisher: State of Delaware, Delaware Code Online. Publication Date: Accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title12/c011/sc01/index.html#1102
• Title: 12 Del. C. § 1103, Suit to determine escheat. Publisher: State of Delaware, Delaware Code Online. Publication Date: Accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title12/c011/sc01/index.html#1103
• Title: 12 Del. C. § 1504, Grant of letters of administration. Publisher: State of Delaware, Delaware Code Online. Publication Date: Accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title12/c015/sc01/index.html#1504
• Title: 12 Del. C. § 1505, Persons entitled to letters of administration. Publisher: State of Delaware, Delaware Code Online. Publication Date: Accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title12/c015/sc01/index.html#1505
• Title: 12 Del. C. § 1901, Personal property constituting assets of estate; exceptions; employee death benefit plans and insurance policies. Publisher: State of Delaware, Delaware Code Online. Publication Date: Accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title12/c019/index.html#1901
• Title: 12 Del. C. § 1902, Rents and profits of deceased's real estate as estate assets; possession and repair of real estate. Publisher: State of Delaware, Delaware Code Online. Publication Date: Accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title12/c019/index.html#1902
• Title: 12 Del. C. § 2306, Distribution of decedent's property without grant of letters where estate assets do not exceed $50,000. Publisher: State of Delaware, Delaware Code Online. Publication Date: Accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title12/c023/sc01/index.html#2306
• Title: 12 Del. C. § 2322, Effect of manslaughter or murder on intestate succession, wills, joint assets, life insurance and beneficiary designations. Publisher: State of Delaware, Delaware Code Online. Publication Date: Accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title12/c023/sc02/index.html#2322
• Title: 12 Del. C. § 2701, Petition for sale of realty to pay decedent's debts; notice. Publisher: State of Delaware, Delaware Code Online. Publication Date: Accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title12/c027/index.html#2701
• Title: 12 Del. C. § 3301, Application of chapter; definitions. Publisher: State of Delaware, Delaware Code Online. Publication Date: Accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title12/c033/index.html#3301
• Title: 25 Del. C. § 203, Applicability, Uniform Real Property Transfer on Death Act. Publisher: State of Delaware, Delaware Code Online. Publication Date: Accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title25/c002/index.html#203
• Title: 25 Del. C. § 213, Effect of transfer on death deed at transferor's death. Publisher: State of Delaware, Delaware Code Online. Publication Date: Accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title25/c002/index.html#213
• Title: 25 Del. C. § 215, Liability for creditor claims and statutory allowances. Publisher: State of Delaware, Delaware Code Online. Publication Date: Accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title25/c002/index.html#215
• Title: 25 Del. C. § 701, Creation of estate in joint tenancy; exception. Publisher: State of Delaware, Delaware Code Online. Publication Date: Accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title25/c007/sc01/index.html#701
• Title: 30 Del. C. ch. 15, Estate Tax, repealed by 81 Del. Laws, c. 52 effective January 1, 2018. Publisher: State of Delaware, Delaware Code Online. Publication Date: Accessed 2026-09-10. URL: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title30/c015/index.html#1502
• Title: 85 Del. Laws, c. 156, An Act to Amend Title 12 and Title 13 of the Delaware Code Relating to the Inheritance Rights of Issue and Posthumous Children. Publisher: Delaware General Assembly. Publication Date: Approved August 21, 2025. URL: https://legis.delaware.gov/SessionLaws?volume=85&chapter=156
• Title: 85 Del. Laws, c. 281, An Act to Amend Title 12 of the Delaware Code Relating to Distribution of Decedent's Property Without Grant of Letters of Administration. Publisher: Delaware General Assembly. Publication Date: Approved June 10, 2026. URL: https://legis.delaware.gov/SessionLaws?volume=85&chapter=281

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