Oregon Intestate Succession

Oregon settles the spousal share with one question: are all of the decedent's surviving descendants also descendants of the surviving spouse? If they are, ORS 112.025(1) gives the spouse the entire net intestate estate. If even one is not, ORS 112.025(2) cuts the spouse to one-half. Where the decedent left no descendant at all, ORS 112.035 gives the spouse everything.

That single test is what out-of-state summaries get wrong about Oregon. ORS 112.025 to 112.055 carry no dollar figure anywhere, no first-dollar sum for the spouse, and no community property half to separate before the fractions run. Every share, definition, and rule below was read at the 2025 Edition of the Oregon Revised Statutes on August 25, 2026. Once you know who the heirs are, read how Oregon probate works for the court steps that follow.

What These Rules Actually Reach

A will and intestacy can run on the same estate at the same time. ORS 112.015(1) sends any part of the net estate that the will does not effectively dispose of through ORS 112.025 to 112.055. A residue the document missed, or a gift that failed, passes by the rules on this page while everything else follows the will.

Five categories come off the top first

ORS 111.005(23) defines the net estate as the real and personal property of a decedent, "except property used for the support of the surviving spouse and children and for the payment of expenses of administration, funeral expenses, claims and taxes." ORS 111.005(24) then defines the net intestate estate as any part of that net estate not effectively disposed of by the will.

Read those two definitions together and the order of operations falls out. Support of the spouse and children, administration expenses, funeral expenses, claims, and taxes all come out before any fraction applies. The arithmetic below runs last, on what is left.

Support is its own petition. Under ORS 114.015 the court by order "shall make necessary and reasonable provision from the estate" for the support of the spouse and dependent children, on petition, service and notice, and a hearing. ORS 114.005 separately lets the spouse and dependent children who occupied the principal dwelling at the death keep occupying it for one year, subject to waste, insurance, tax, and lien conditions. Neither section names a dollar amount.

A will can disinherit an heir even as to property passing intestate

ORS 112.015(2) lets a decedent expressly exclude or limit the right of an individual or a class to succeed to property passing by intestate succession. Where that person survives, the share they would have taken passes as if they had disclaimed it. A negative bequest works in Oregon, so read the will even when the estate is passing outside it.

Property that never touches ORS chapter 112

Only probate property follows these rules. Check the title and the beneficiary form on every asset before you divide anything.

• Real estate under a recorded transfer on death deed. ORS 93.957 makes the deed nontestamentary and ORS 93.961(1)(d) requires recording in the deed records of the county clerk for the county where the property sits, before the transferor's death. ORS 93.973 still lets the estate reach that property where the probate estate cannot cover an allowed claim or the ORS 114.015 allowance, on a proceeding brought within 18 months of the death.
• A bank or credit union deposit of $25,000 or less. ORS 708A.430 for an insured bank, and ORS 723.466 for a credit union, let the depositor's bank or credit union pay the money on an affidavit to a statutory priority list starting with the surviving spouse. ORS 708A.430(7) says no probate proceeding is needed to establish the right to withdraw.
• Property held with a right of survivorship, created during life.
• Assets with a living named beneficiary and funded revocable trusts. Life insurance, retirement accounts, payable on death registrations, and property already titled in a trust pass by contract or by the trust terms.

The Surviving Spouse (ORS 112.025 and ORS 112.035)

One estate, one fraction. Oregon has no community and separate split to sort first, so the whole net intestate estate is measured once and the spousal fraction applies to all of it.

Oregon does ask whose children they are

This is the split that trips writers coming from Washington. RCW 11.04.015(1)(b) asks only whether the decedent left issue. ORS 112.025 asks a second question on top of that, and the answer changes the fraction. A married couple's own two children leave the Oregon spouse with the whole net intestate estate. One child from an earlier relationship drops that spouse to one-half.

The test runs in one direction only. It looks at the decedent's surviving descendants and asks whether each is also the spouse's. A child of the surviving spouse who is not descended from the decedent sits outside the question entirely and never moves the fraction.

A childless decedent's parents take nothing where a spouse survives

ORS 112.035 is one sentence and it gives the spouse the whole net intestate estate. Nothing drops down to surviving parents, siblings, or grandparents while a spouse is alive and there is no descendant. Oregon parts company here with the states that hand a childless decedent's parents a slice alongside the widow or widower.

The spouse has claims that sit outside the fraction

The intestate share is only part of the spousal answer. ORS 114.605(2) sets an elective share running from 5 percent of the augmented estate for a marriage of less than 2 years up to 33 percent at 15 years or more, and ORS 114.610 requires the election within nine months after the death. Amounts allowed as support under ORS 114.015 come on top of the elective share under ORS 114.600(2). Read what a surviving spouse can claim before you treat the fraction above as the final number.

Who Inherits After the Spouse (ORS 112.045)

The part of the net intestate estate that does not pass to the surviving spouse, or the whole of it where no spouse survives, passes in this order. Stop at the first rung that has a taker.

1. Descendants of the decedent, by representation as described in ORS 112.065.
2. Surviving parents of the decedent, where no descendant survives. ORS 112.045(2) names them without stating a fraction, and subsection (5) below governs how a married pair holds what they take.
3. Brothers and sisters, equally, where no descendant or parent survives, with a deceased sibling's share going to that sibling's descendants by representation. Where no sibling survives at all, the descendants of siblings take equally if they are all of the same generation, and by representation if they are of different generations.
4. Grandparents, equally, where no descendant, parent, or descendant of a parent survives, with a deceased grandparent's share going to that grandparent's descendants by representation if the grandparent left descendants surviving at the decedent's death. Where no grandparent survives at all, the descendants of grandparents take equally if all of one generation, and by representation otherwise.

ORS 112.045(5) adds a wrinkle worth catching. Where surviving parents or grandparents who take under this section are married to each other at the time of taking, they take real property as tenants by the entirety and personal property as joint owners with the right of survivorship. Two parents who are still married to each other do not end up with separately divisible halves.

The ladder stops at the descendants of grandparents

The ladder ends with the descendants of grandparents in ORS 112.045(4)(b). Subsection (5) is a holding rule rather than another rung, and chapter 112 carries no catch-all for next of kin in equal degree and no great-grandparent rung anywhere.

That class still reaches a long way sideways. Aunts, uncles, first cousins, and their descendants are all descendants of a grandparent, so they inherit. What Oregon cuts off is the reach upward. A relative whose nearest shared ancestor with the decedent is a great-grandparent, which covers second cousins and great-aunts and great-uncles, connects through no grandparent of the decedent and takes nothing. In a state with an open next-of-kin rung that person would inherit. In Oregon the estate escheats instead.

How Oregon Divides a Branch (ORS 112.065)

Representation is the method for working out shares when the takers stand in different generations. ORS 112.065 divides the share into as many equal parts as there are surviving descendants in the generation nearest the person that contains any survivor, plus deceased descendants in that same nearest generation who left surviving descendants. Each part created for a living descendant goes to that descendant. Each part created for a deceased descendant goes down to that person's own descendants by representation.

One definition does quiet work alongside it. ORS 111.005(9)(b) says that when the word refers to persons who take by intestate succession, "descendant" does not include a person who is the descendant of a living descendant. A grandchild whose parent is alive is not counted as a separate taker, so nobody is counted twice.

Three worked examples, on an estate with no surviving spouse:

• Three living children. The nearest generation with a survivor is the children's, and it holds three shares. Each child takes one-third.
• Two living children and one child who died leaving two children. The children's generation holds three shares, two for the survivors and one for the deceased child who left descendants. Each living child takes one-third. The deceased child's one-third splits between that child's two children, one-sixth each.
• No living child, four grandchildren through two deceased children. The nearest generation containing a survivor is the grandchildren's, and it holds four shares. Each grandchild takes one-quarter, whichever deceased child they descend from. Oregon counts at the nearest generation that has a living taker rather than at the children's generation, so three grandchildren in one branch and one in the other still share equally.

Now put the spouse back in. A surviving spouse plus two children who are both also the spouse's children gives the spouse the entire net intestate estate under ORS 112.025(1), and the children take nothing by intestate succession. A surviving spouse plus two children, one of them from an earlier relationship, gives the spouse one-half and sends the other one-half to the two children by representation, one-quarter of the whole to each.

To put dollars against the fractions for your own family rather than for a worked example, the Oregon inheritance calculator applies ORS 112.025, ORS 112.035 and the ORS 112.045 ladder to the survivors you enter.

Oregon Is Not a Community Property State

Do not carry the Washington, Nevada, Arizona, or New Mexico pattern into Oregon. There is no community half to confirm to the survivor before the fractions run, and no double step-up in basis on Oregon marital property.

Oregon does have a narrow tracing rule for community property earned somewhere else. ORS 112.705 to 112.775 are the Uniform Disposition of Community Property Rights at Death Act. ORS 112.715 applies the act to personal property wherever situated that was acquired as, or became and remained, community property under another jurisdiction's law, to traceable proceeds of it, and to Oregon real property acquired with that property or traceable to it. ORS 112.735 then keeps one-half of that property out of the decedent's estate: it "is the property of the surviving spouse and is not subject to testamentary disposition by the decedent or distribution under the laws of succession of this state."

For a couple who spent a working life in California or Washington and retired to Oregon, that act can move a large slice of the estate. It applies to the traced property and nothing else.

The 120-Hour Survival Rule (ORS 112.572)

An heir who cannot be shown to have outlived the decedent by 120 hours is deemed to have died first. ORS 112.572 sets the standard at clear and convincing evidence and applies the test where title to property, the devolution of property, the right to elect an interest in property, or the right to exempt property turns on whether one person survived another.

The burden sits on the person claiming the share, so an unproven case fails.

ORS 112.586 then switches the rule off in six situations, and two of them come up often. The rules do not apply in any situation where applying them would result in escheat of an intestate estate to the state, so survival never pushes an estate to the State of Oregon. And they do not apply where a governing instrument addresses simultaneous deaths or a common disaster, waives any survival period, or sets its own period. ORS 112.570(2) defines a governing instrument broadly enough to include a deed, a will, a transfer on death deed, a trust, a payable on death account, a retirement plan, and a power of attorney.

How Children Inherit

Parents who never married

ORS 112.105(1) gives full effect, for all purposes of intestate succession, to the relationships described in ORS 109.060. That section states the rule plainly: the legal status, relationships, rights, and obligations between a person and their descendants, and between a person and their parents and kindred, "are the same for all persons, whether or not the parents have been married."

ORS 112.105(2) adds a gate that runs before that effect is given. Either parentage must have been established under ORS 109.065 during the child's lifetime, or the parent must have acknowledged being the parent in a writing signed by the parent during the child's lifetime. ORS 109.065 lists the routes to establishment, including giving birth, an unrebutted presumption, a judicial adjudication, adoption, and an effective acknowledgment of parentage.

Both ORS 112.105 and ORS 112.077 were amended by 2025 Or. Laws ch. 592, the parentage act, and by section 153(1)(a) of that act those amendments became operative on January 1, 2026. The text quoted here is the amended text.

Adopted children

ORS 112.175(1) runs the inheritance in both directions. An adopted person, and that person's descendants and kindred, take by intestate succession from the adoptive parents and their descendants and kindred, and those adoptive relatives take from the adopted person, as though the adopted person were the biological child of the adoptive parents.

ORS 112.175(2) then closes the door on the birth family, with two written exceptions that keep it open:

• Adoption by a stepparent, or by a domestic partner of a parent in a partnership registered under ORS 106.300 to 106.340 or a similar law elsewhere. The adopted person stays the child of the parent married to or partnered with the adoptive parent.
• Adoption by a stepparent or other domestic partner after one parent has died and the surviving parent has married or entered a registered domestic partnership. The adopted person stays the child of the deceased parent.

A child conceived before the death

ORS 112.077(2) fixes relationships as they stood at the decedent's death. Subsection (3) then carries a child conceived before the death and born alive afterward, who inherits as though alive at the death. Subsection (1) provides that an embryo outside a person's body is not considered conceived until it is implanted, and subsection (4) bars an interest for a child conceived from the decedent's genetic material transferred after the death unless the decedent signed and dated a writing allowing the use, along with the other conditions the section sets.

Half Blood and Double Kinship

ORS 112.095 is one sentence with no proviso attached: "Persons of the half blood inherit the same share that they would inherit if they were of the whole blood." Oregon has no ancestral-property exclusion of the kind Washington kept in RCW 11.04.035, so a half-sibling is not shut out of land the decedent inherited from a parent the two of them did not share. This is the field a templated summary most often imports from the wrong state.

ORS 112.115 handles the opposite case. A person related to the decedent through two lines of relationship takes only a single share, based on the relationship that would give the larger share.

A Lifetime Gift Counts Only If Someone Wrote It Down

ORS 112.135(1)(a) treats property given during the decedent's lifetime to an heir as an advancement against that heir's share only if the decedent declared it in writing, or the heir acknowledged it in writing, to be an advancement. No writing means no advancement, and the gift sits outside the arithmetic entirely.

Where a writing exists, ORS 112.135(1)(b) values the property as of the time the heir came into possession or enjoyment of it, or as of the decedent's death, whichever comes first, unless the decedent's writing directs otherwise.

A Parent Can Lose a Share (ORS 112.047)

Property that would pass to a parent of the decedent under ORS 112.045 passes instead as if that parent had predeceased the decedent in two situations. The first is termination of parental rights with respect to the decedent, where the parent-child relationship was never judicially reestablished. The second is willful desertion, or neglect of proper care and maintenance without just and sufficient cause, over a statutory period.

That period is one year or three years, and which one applies turns on two things: whether the person who would benefit from the forfeiture is a child or sibling of the decedent, and whether the decedent died an adult or a minor.

Forfeiture is not automatic. ORS 112.049 requires a petition in the probate proceeding, and only a person who would benefit from the forfeiture may file it. Where the ORS 113.145 information had to be delivered or mailed to that person, the deadline is four months after that delivery or mailing. Where the person was not required to be named as an interested person in the petition for appointment of a personal representative, the deadline is four months after publication of notice to interested persons, or one year after the date of death where no notice was published. The petitioner carries the burden by a preponderance of evidence where the petitioner is a child or sibling of the decedent, and by clear and convincing evidence where the petitioner is not.

This is a civil forfeiture of an inheritance right. ORS 112.047 creates no crime and names none.

Slayers and Abusers (ORS 112.455 to 112.555)

ORS 112.465(1) treats property that would have passed by reason of the death to a slayer or an abuser of the decedent, "whether by intestate succession, by will, by transfer on death deed, by trust, or otherwise," as passing and vesting as if that person had predeceased the decedent. The reach past the probate estate to a transfer on death deed and a trust is written into the section.

The two labels are defined narrowly in ORS 112.455. A slayer is a person who takes or procures the taking of a life with felonious intent, or is found guilty except for insanity, or found responsible except for insanity. An abuser is a person convicted of a felony by reason of conduct constituting physical abuse under ORS 124.105 or financial abuse under ORS 124.110, and ORS 112.457 applies the abuser rules only where the decedent dies within five years after that conviction.

Proof works two ways under ORS 112.555. A final judgment of conviction of felonious and intentional killing, once any right to appeal is exhausted, is conclusive. Absent a conviction, the court may determine by a preponderance of evidence whether the killing was felonious and intentional. A final judgment of guilty except for insanity, or a final order finding a youth responsible except for insanity, is also conclusive.

These sections govern inheritance rights. They create no criminal offense.

When No Heir Turns Up (ORS 112.055)

Where no person takes under ORS 112.025 to 112.045 after "diligent search and inquiry that is appropriate to the circumstances, taking into account the value of the decedent's estate," the net intestate estate escheats to the State of Oregon.

ORS 112.055(2) covers the narrower case of a devisee or heir who exists but cannot be identified or found. That person's share alone escheats, gets delivered to the State Treasurer for deposit into the Unclaimed Property and Estates Fund, and stays subject to claims under ORS 116.253. Subsection (3) then hands the State Treasurer that missing person's preference for appointment as personal representative under ORS 113.085, vests the title that would have vested in them under ORS 114.215, and gives the Treasurer their rights to notice, to contest the will under ORS 113.075, and to information under ORS 113.145.

A late-arriving heir has a defined runway. ORS 116.253(1) allows a claim within 10 years after the death, or within eight years after entry of the judgment or order escheating the property, by or on behalf of a person who had no actual knowledge of the escheat or who could not prove entitlement at the time. The claim goes to the State Treasurer by petition, and ORS 116.253(2) lists what the petition must contain.

Dower and Curtesy Are Gone

ORS 112.685 in full: "Dower and curtesy, including inchoate dower and curtesy, are abolished." An Oregon surviving spouse has the ORS 112.025 and 112.035 shares, the ORS 114.015 support provision, the ORS 114.005 occupancy right, and the elective share, and no common law life estate in the decedent's land.

Title Vests at Death, Not at the Judgment

ORS 114.215(1)(a) vests title to the decedent's property, in the absence of testamentary disposition, in the heirs at the moment of death. That vesting arrives loaded. It is subject to support of the spouse and children, rights of creditors, and administration and sale by the personal representative or by an affiant as defined in ORS 114.505.

Immediate vesting is not marketable title and does not remove the need for administration. Every one of those listed conditions is a live encumbrance on what an heir actually receives.

How to Map an Oregon Intestate Estate

1. Sort probate property from everything passing by beneficiary designation, survivorship, a trust, or a recorded transfer on death deed. Only probate property follows ORS chapter 112.
2. Read the will, if one exists. ORS 112.015(1) applies these rules only to what the will does not effectively dispose of, and ORS 112.015(2) lets the will disinherit an heir even as to that property.
3. Subtract support of the spouse and children, administration expenses, funeral expenses, claims, and taxes, because ORS 111.005(23) defines the net estate after all five.
4. Confirm each candidate heir outlived the decedent by 120 hours under ORS 112.572 before counting anyone in, and check ORS 112.586 for a governing instrument that turns the rule off.
5. Ask the ORS 112.025 question. Are all of the decedent's surviving descendants also descendants of the surviving spouse? That answer alone decides between the whole estate and one-half.
6. Send the balance down the ORS 112.045 ladder, splitting any branch by representation under ORS 112.065 and applying the ORS 111.005(9)(b) definition so nobody is counted twice.
7. Check the modifiers: an advancement in writing under ORS 112.135, a parental forfeiture under ORS 112.047, a slayer or abuser under ORS 112.465, and double kinship under ORS 112.115.
8. Where the ladder finds no taker at the descendants of grandparents, ORS 112.055 escheats the estate.

Two paths out of a full administration are worth checking before you open one. Where the estate holds no more than $75,000 of personal property other than manufactured homes and no more than $200,000 of real property and manufactured homes, ORS 114.510 opens the simple estate affidavit, and intestacy does not close that route. Read the simple estate affidavit for who may file and what it transfers.

The other path is to make these rules stop applying. A valid will replaces every fraction on this page with the decedent's own plan and lets the decedent name the personal representative. Read what makes an Oregon will valid for the signing formalities that hold up.

This guide is general information about Oregon estates, not advice for your situation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who inherits if there is no will in Oregon?

The surviving spouse takes the entire net intestate estate when the decedent left no descendant (ORS 112.035), and also when every surviving descendant of the decedent is a descendant of that spouse (ORS 112.025(1)). If even one surviving descendant is not the spouse's, the spouse takes one-half and the rest goes to the decedent's descendants by representation (ORS 112.025(2) and ORS 112.045(1)). With no spouse, the order under ORS 112.045 runs descendants, then parents, then siblings and their descendants, then grandparents and their descendants.

Does the surviving spouse get everything in Oregon?

Often, yes. ORS 112.035 gives the spouse the whole net intestate estate where the decedent left no descendant, so surviving parents and siblings take nothing. ORS 112.025(1) gives the spouse the whole net intestate estate where the decedent left descendants and all of them are also the spouse's descendants. The spouse drops to one-half only under ORS 112.025(2), where at least one surviving descendant of the decedent is not a descendant of the spouse.

Do a couple's own children reduce the spouse's share in Oregon?

No. ORS 112.025(1) gives the surviving spouse the entire net intestate estate where every surviving descendant of the decedent is also a descendant of the spouse, no matter how many children there are. Oregon differs from Washington on exactly this point, and a page that cuts an Oregon spouse to one-half because children survive is describing another state's statute.

Do half-siblings inherit the same share in Oregon?

Yes, with no exception. ORS 112.095 is one sentence: persons of the half blood inherit the same share that they would inherit if they were of the whole blood. Oregon has no ancestral-property proviso, so a half-sibling is not shut out of property the decedent inherited from a parent the two did not share.

What happens if no relative can be found in Oregon?

The net intestate estate escheats to the State of Oregon under ORS 112.055(1) after a diligent search and inquiry appropriate to the circumstances. Escheat is easier to reach in Oregon than in many states because the ORS 112.045 ladder stops at the descendants of grandparents, with no open next-of-kin rung. A claimant has 10 years from the death, or eight years from the judgment or order of escheat, to petition the State Treasurer under ORS 116.253.

Sources:

• Title: Oregon Revised Statutes Chapter 112, Intestate Succession and Wills. Publisher: Oregon State Legislature. Publication Date: 2025 Edition. URL: https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/bills_laws/ors/ors112.html
• Title: Oregon Revised Statutes Chapter 111, General Provisions. Publisher: Oregon State Legislature. Publication Date: 2025 Edition. URL: https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/bills_laws/ors/ors111.html
• Title: Oregon Revised Statutes Chapter 114, Administration of Estates Generally. Publisher: Oregon State Legislature. Publication Date: 2025 Edition. URL: https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/bills_laws/ors/ors114.html
• Title: Oregon Revised Statutes Chapter 116, Accounting, Distribution and Closing. Publisher: Oregon State Legislature. Publication Date: 2025 Edition. URL: https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/bills_laws/ors/ors116.html
• Title: Oregon Revised Statutes Chapter 93, Conveyancing and Recording. Publisher: Oregon State Legislature. Publication Date: 2025 Edition. URL: https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/bills_laws/ors/ors093.html
• Title: Oregon Revised Statutes Chapter 109, Parent and Child Rights and Relationships. Publisher: Oregon State Legislature. Publication Date: 2025 Edition. URL: https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/bills_laws/ors/ors109.html
• Title: Oregon Revised Statutes Chapter 708A, Regulation of Institutions Generally. Publisher: Oregon State Legislature. Publication Date: 2025 Edition. URL: https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/bills_laws/ors/ors708A.html
• Title: Oregon Laws 2025, Chapter 592 (SB 163), Relating to parentage. Publisher: Oregon State Legislature. Publication Date: 2025. URL: https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/bills_laws/lawsstatutes/2025orLaw0592.pdf
• Title: Oregon Laws 2025, Chapter 463 (SB 146), Relating to trust property. Publisher: Oregon State Legislature. Publication Date: 2025. URL: https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/bills_laws/lawsstatutes/2025orLaw0463.pdf

It is not legal advice.