Indiana Intestate Succession

When an Indiana resident dies without a will, IC 29-1-2-1 decides who inherits. A surviving spouse takes one-half of the net estate when the decedent left children, three-fourths when there are no children but a parent survives, and everything when there is neither. A second or subsequent spouse who had no children with the decedent takes a reduced share of the real estate.

This guide answers one question: who gets what when there is no will. For how to open the estate, qualify to serve, and work through the deadlines, read the companion Indiana probate guide. This page maps the shares. That one maps the process. To see how these rules divide a specific estate, use the Indiana inheritance calculator and model who inherits what when there is no will. For the wider picture, start at Indiana probate help.

What Dying Without a Will Means in Indiana

Dying without a valid will is called dying intestate. When that happens, no document names the heirs, so Indiana statute does. IC 29-1-2-1 sets the order of distribution, and it runs in a fixed order of family classes. Every share is measured against the net estate, meaning what remains after debts, claims, and expenses are paid.

Intestate succession reaches only probate property, meaning assets that pass through the estate. Property with a named beneficiary, a payable-on-death or transfer-on-death registration, or joint ownership with survivorship passes outside the estate and skips these rules. Married Hoosiers often hold the home as tenants by the entirety, and it passes to the surviving spouse automatically. Indiana also lets an owner record a transfer on death deed under the Transfer on Death Property Act, and land that passes that way never enters intestacy. Check the title and the beneficiary form on each asset before you apply anything below. To see which assets skip the estate, read how to avoid probate in Indiana.

The Surviving Spouse's Share

IC 29-1-2-1(b) gives the surviving spouse:

• one-half of the net estate when the decedent is survived by at least one child or by the issue of a deceased child. The children and their descendants divide the other half.
• three-fourths of the net estate when there is no surviving issue but one or both of the decedent's parents survive
• the entire net estate when there is no surviving issue and no surviving parent

Issue means descendants, so children, grandchildren, and the lines below them all count. One of these rules catches families off guard: a living parent cuts the spouse's share. When the decedent left no descendants but a mother or father is alive, the parent or parents take the remaining one-fourth under IC 29-1-2-1(d)(2). The spouse does not inherit everything just because there are no children.

A Second or Subsequent Spouse Takes Less of the Real Estate

Indiana adds a rule most states do not have. Under IC 29-1-2-1(c), when the surviving spouse is a second or other subsequent spouse who never had children with the decedent, and the decedent left a child, children, or the descendants of children from a previous spouse, the spouse does not take an ownership share of the decedent's real estate. Title to the land vests at the moment of death in the decedent's children or their descendants. The spouse instead receives an amount equal to 25 percent of the fair market value of that real estate on the date of death, minus the liens and encumbrances on it.

The personal property side is untouched. A second or subsequent childless spouse still takes the same share of the decedent's personal property as any surviving spouse under subsection (b).

Take a decedent who remarried, had no children with the new spouse, and left two children from a first marriage, a home worth $300,000 with a $100,000 mortgage, and $80,000 in personal property. The two children own the home at the moment of death. The surviving spouse receives $50,000, which is 25 percent of the $200,000 equity, plus $40,000 as the one-half share of the personal property. The children divide the remaining personal property.

(Source: IC 29-1-2-1(b) and (c).)

When There Is No Surviving Spouse

The share that does not pass to a spouse, or the whole net estate when there is no spouse, moves down the classes in IC 29-1-2-1(d). Each class must be empty before the next one inherits.

1. Children and their descendants. The decedent's children take equal shares, and the descendants of a child who died first take that child's share by representation.
2. Parents, brothers, and sisters together. With no spouse and no descendants, the parents and siblings inherit as a single class. A living parent counts the same as a brother or sister and takes an equal share, with a floor: a parent's share cannot drop below one-fourth of the net estate. Say one parent and four siblings survive. An even split would give each one-fifth, so the floor lifts the parent to one-fourth and the four siblings divide the remaining three-fourths.
3. Nieces and nephews. When no parent, brother, or sister survives, the siblings' descendants take the estate: equally when they are all of the same degree, by representation when they are not.
4. Grandparents. The decedent's surviving grandparents take equal shares.
5. Aunts, uncles, and their descendants. The estate divides into one share for each aunt or uncle who survived the decedent and each who died leaving descendants. Each share passes to that aunt or uncle, or down that branch per stirpes, which is how first cousins can inherit.
6. The State of Indiana. When no one in any of these classes survives, the estate escheats to the state under IC 29-1-2-1(d)(8).

The list stops with the aunt-and-uncle branches. Indiana does not reach great-grandparents or more distant ancestor lines. Even so, dying without a will rarely sends property to the state, because the family classes come first.

How a Deceased Heir's Descendants Take a Share

Indiana splits each class by degree. Heirs of the same degree of kinship take equal shares. Heirs of a more remote degree take by representation, stepping into the share their deceased parent would have received. IC 29-1-2-1(d)(1) states both rules for descendants in one sentence.

Say a decedent with no spouse had three children, and one of them died first, leaving two children of their own. The estate divides into three equal parts. The two living children each take one-third, and the two grandchildren split their parent's third, one-sixth each.

Now change the facts: all three children died before the decedent, leaving five grandchildren in total. Every heir is now of the same degree, so the five grandchildren take equally, one-fifth each, rather than splitting by branch.

Half-Blood Relatives Take a Full Share

A half-blood relative shares only one parent with the decedent, such as a half-sibling. Some states cut a half-blood heir's portion. Indiana does not. Under IC 29-1-2-5, kindred of the half blood inherit the same share they would have inherited if they had been of the whole blood. A half-sister and a full brother inheriting from a sibling who left no spouse, descendants, or parents take equal shares.

Children Born Outside Marriage

IC 29-1-2-7 treats a child born out of wedlock as the mother's child for every inheritance purpose. The child inherits from and through the mother and her family with no extra step.

Inheriting from and through the father requires one of the conditions in the statute:

• paternity was established in a court action filed during the father's lifetime, or, for a child under twenty when the father died, in an action filed within five months after the death
• for a child born after the father's death, paternity was established in an action filed within eleven months after the death
• the father married the child's mother and acknowledged the child as his own
• the father signed a paternity affidavit under IC 16-37-2-2.1

The mother's testimony can support a paternity finding, but a court cannot rule on her evidence alone. The statute requires corroborating evidence or circumstances.

Adopted Children, Afterborn Heirs, and Double Relationships

Three more rules shape who counts as an heir:

• Adopted children. Under IC 29-1-2-8, an adopted child inherits from the adopting parents as a natural child and stops inheriting from the birth parents. Two exceptions apply. When a birth parent marries the adopting parent, the child still inherits from that birth parent. And when a relative within the sixth degree adopts the child, the child may inherit through the birth line or the adoptive line, whichever is larger in value.
• Afterborn heirs. A descendant conceived before the death and born afterward inherits as if born during the decedent's lifetime (IC 29-1-2-6). Aside from that exception, Indiana fixes every relationship as it stood on the date of death. When two people die at the same time and nothing shows who survived, each person's property passes as if that person outlived the other (IC 29-2-14-1).
• Two family lines. A person related to the decedent through two lines of relationship takes a single share, the larger of the two (IC 29-1-2-9).

Conduct and Paperwork That Change a Share

A few statutes take an inheritance away from someone the class order would otherwise reach:

• Adultery. A spouse who left the decedent and was living in adultery at the time of the death takes no part of the estate (IC 29-1-2-14).
• Abandonment. A spouse who abandoned the decedent without just cause takes nothing (IC 29-1-2-15).
• Causing the death. A person found guilty of causing an unlawful death, or found in a civil action by a preponderance of the evidence to have knowingly or intentionally caused one, holds anything received from the victim as a constructive trustee for the people who would otherwise take it (IC 29-1-2-12.1). A parent convicted of murder or voluntary manslaughter of the child's other parent cannot take an intestate share of that child's estate (IC 29-1-2-1(e)).
• Advancements. A lifetime gift counts against an heir's share only when the decedent declared in a writing, or the heir acknowledged in a writing, that the gift was an advancement. Without that writing, Indiana presumes the gift was absolute (IC 29-1-2-10).

A Spouse's Protections Reach Past the Intestate Share

The intestate share is not the only thing a surviving spouse can claim. The spouse of an Indiana decedent can take the $25,000 survivor's allowance under IC 29-1-4-1, and the allowance does not count against the spouse's distributive share. When there is a will, the spouse can elect against it instead of taking under it (IC 29-1-3-1), and the same second-or-subsequent-spouse limit applies to the real estate in that election. The Indiana surviving spouse rights guide walks through each protection and how they stack.

Read an Indiana Intestate Estate in Order

Use this sequence when you map who inherits:

1. Separate probate property from assets that pass by beneficiary designation, survivorship, or a recorded transfer on death deed. Only probate property follows these rules.
2. Figure the net estate: what remains after valid debts, claims, and expenses.
3. Apply the spouse's share under IC 29-1-2-1(b), and check the second-or-subsequent-spouse rule in subsection (c) whenever the decedent left stepchildren from a prior marriage.
4. Send the rest down the class order in IC 29-1-2-1(d), splitting a deceased heir's branch among that heir's descendants.
5. Confirm the family tree, the asset titles, and the county file with the circuit or superior court that hears probate in the decedent's county before anyone distributes property.

Estates at or under $100,000 may skip full administration: see the Indiana small estate affidavit path. Whoever serves the estate still files through the clerk of the circuit court and follows the steps in the first steps after a death in Indiana guide. Making a valid will replaces these defaults with your own plan, and the Indiana will requirements guide shows what the state asks for.

When to Bring in an Indiana Attorney

Some intestate estates are simple to map from the statute. Others need a licensed Indiana attorney, above all when:

• stepchildren from a prior marriage put the second-or-subsequent-spouse rule in play and the real estate must be valued
• a surviving parent shares the estate with the spouse or with siblings
• paternity must be proven after the father's death, on a five-month or eleven-month clock
• an heir died before the decedent and their branch raises a question about who steps in
• someone's conduct, such as abandonment or adultery, may forfeit a share
• an heir cannot be found, or the family tree is unclear

This guide helps you organize the source-backed shares and the questions to ask. A licensed Indiana attorney can advise on rights, disputes, and signing decisions for a specific estate. This is general information about Indiana estates, not advice for your situation.

Sources:

• Title: Indiana Code section 29-1-2-1, Estate distribution. Publisher: Indiana General Assembly, 2025 Indiana Code. Publication Date: Not listed. URL: https://iga.in.gov/laws/2025/ic/titles/29#29-1-2-1
• Title: Indiana Code section 29-1-2-5, Kindred of half blood; inheritance. Publisher: Indiana General Assembly, 2025 Indiana Code. Publication Date: Not listed. URL: https://iga.in.gov/laws/2025/ic/titles/29#29-1-2-5
• Title: Indiana Code section 29-1-2-7, Children born out of wedlock; inheritance. Publisher: Indiana General Assembly, 2025 Indiana Code. Publication Date: Not listed. URL: https://iga.in.gov/laws/2025/ic/titles/29#29-1-2-7
• Title: Indiana Code section 29-1-2-8, Adopted children; inheritance. Publisher: Indiana General Assembly, 2025 Indiana Code. Publication Date: Not listed. URL: https://iga.in.gov/laws/2025/ic/titles/29#29-1-2-8
• Title: Indiana Code section 29-1-4-1, Surviving spouse and family allowances. Publisher: Indiana General Assembly, 2025 Indiana Code. Publication Date: Not listed. URL: https://iga.in.gov/laws/2025/ic/titles/29#29-1-4-1

It is not legal advice.