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Vermont Intestate Succession
Pillar GuideVermont19 min read

Vermont Intestate Succession

Who inherits without a will in Vermont: the two spouse shares under 14 V.S.A. § 311, the heir ladder in § 314, and the 120-hour survival rule.

By Settled Editorial

When a Vermont resident dies without a will, 14 V.S.A. § 311 and § 314 decide who inherits. The surviving spouse takes the whole intestate estate unless the decedent left a descendant who is not also the spouse's descendant, in which case the spouse takes one half. What is left runs down a short ladder of blood relatives.

This guide answers one question: who gets what when there is no will in Vermont. It follows 14 V.S.A. chapter 42, the disclaimer rules in chapter 83, the escheat rules in chapter 49, and the adoption rules in Title 15A. Every share and every deadline below was read at the Vermont Statutes Online on August 4, 2026. Once you know who the heirs are, read how Vermont probate works for the court steps that follow.

Intestacy Reaches Only the Probate Estate

Dying without a valid will is called dying intestate. No document names the takers, so the statute names them. 14 V.S.A. § 301 reaches "any part of a decedent's estate not effectively disposed of by will," which means a partial will leaves a partial intestacy behind it.

One vocabulary point saves confusion on every Vermont form you will meet. Title 14 says executor or administrator, never personal representative. Chapter 61 is headed "Executors and Administrators," and Vermont never adopted the Uniform Probate Code, so the court's own paperwork follows the statute. 14 V.S.A. § 903 sets who may be appointed when there is no will: the surviving spouse or next of kin first, or a person they nominate, then a principal creditor who is competent and willing to serve, then anyone the Probate Division picks.

Property that skips these rules entirely

  • Bank or investment accounts with a payable-on-death or transfer-on-death beneficiary
  • Life insurance, an IRA, or a 401(k) with a living named beneficiary
  • Real estate or accounts held in joint tenancy with right of survivorship
  • Property titled in a revocable living trust
  • Real estate that passes under an enhanced life estate deed recorded under 27 V.S.A. chapter 6
  • A motor vehicle whose Vermont title carries a transfer-on-death designation under 23 V.S.A. § 2023(f)

Check the title and the beneficiary form on each asset before you apply anything below. Only property the decedent owned alone, with no beneficiary and no survivorship, follows the intestate order.

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The Surviving Spouse's Share (14 V.S.A. § 311)

Vermont gives the spouse one of two answers, and no dollar figure appears in either. Read the table top to bottom and stop at the first row that matches.

If the decedent leavesThe surviving spouse receives
No surviving descendantThe entire intestate estate
Surviving descendants who are all also descendants of the spouseThe entire intestate estate
One or more surviving descendants who are not the spouse's, and who the will does not excludeOne half of the intestate estate

"Descendant" covers children, grandchildren, and further down the line.

The spouse is paid after the allowances, not before

Section 311 opens with a sequence that most summaries drop. The spouse's share is computed "after payment of the debts, funeral charges, allowances to the surviving spouse and children pursuant to sections 316 and 317 of this title, and expenses of administration." So debts, funeral charges, the family allowances, and administration expenses all come off the top first, and the allowances are discretionary court awards rather than fixed claims.

Section 316 lets the Probate Division award reasonable support for the surviving spouse and minor children from the date of death until the estate settles, and that award may outrank the estate's debts if the judge says so. Section 317 does the same for the decedent's children until they turn 18, and it is paid before any distribution to creditors, heirs, or will beneficiaries. Neither section names an amount. Both are discretionary, so the size of the spouse's half is not fixed until the judge rules on them.

A will can still cut someone out of an intestate estate

The half-share row carries a clause worth reading twice: the spouse drops to one half only where a surviving descendant of the decedent is "not excluded by the decedent's will." Section 301(b) is the engine behind it. A Vermont will may expressly exclude or limit an individual or a class from inheriting, and the share that person would have taken passes subject to that exclusion even though the will disposed of nothing.

That means a document that gives away no property at all can still change who inherits under intestacy. Read any paper the decedent signed before you assume the estate is fully intestate, and read it for exclusions rather than only for gifts.

A spouse also has claims that sit outside this table, including an election against a will. Read what a surviving spouse can claim instead before you treat the intestate share as the final number. To see the shares against your own family, run them through the Vermont inheritance calculator.

Who Inherits After the Spouse (14 V.S.A. § 314)

Whatever the spouse does not take, or the whole estate when no spouse survives, passes in this order under section 314:

  1. Descendants of the decedent, by right of representation.
  2. Parents, equally if both survive, or all to the surviving parent.
  3. Siblings, and the descendants of any deceased sibling, by right of representation.
  4. Grandparents. One half to the paternal grandparents equally or to the survivor on that side, one half to the maternal grandparents on the same terms. Where a grandparent survives on only one side, that grandparent or those grandparents take the whole.
  5. Next of kin in equal degree, in equal shares.

How Vermont defines right of representation

Section 314(c) writes the arithmetic into the statute. The property is divided into as many equal shares as there are children or siblings of the decedent who either survive the decedent or predecease the decedent leaving surviving descendants. A branch that died out entirely gets no share. A branch that left descendants takes the share its head would have taken.

The ladder has no degree cutoff

Vermont stops at "next of kin in equal degree" and sets no limit on how remote that kin may be. Section 314 names no fourth-degree or fifth-degree cutoff, so a distant cousin can still take, and escheat waits until the search for kin comes back empty. Half-blood relatives sit inside the ladder on the same terms as everyone else. Section 331 is one sentence: "Kindred of the half-blood shall inherit the same share they would inherit if they were of the whole blood." Vermont carries no ancestral-property rule that would claw a half-sibling's share back to the side of the family the property came from.

The 120-Hour Survival Rule (14 V.S.A. § 337)

An heir who fails to outlive the decedent by 120 hours, five full days, is treated as having died first. Section 337 applies that test to homestead allowance, exempt property, intestate succession, and taking under a will. Where clear and convincing evidence does not establish the 120 hours, the statute deems the survival test failed, so the burden sits on the person claiming the share.

Two limits ride along with it. A will may switch the rule off, since section 337 opens with "except as provided in the decedent's will." And the rule is not applied where applying it would send the estate to escheat.

A child in gestation counts as living at the decedent's death under section 303, on one condition: the child has to live 120 hours or more after birth. Vermont also keeps a separate Uniform Simultaneous Death Act at 14 V.S.A. chapter 47, with its own sections for joint tenants and for insurance policies, which handles title questions that turn on who died first.

How Children Inherit

Adopted children

Adoption inheritance sits in Title 15A, not Title 14. 15A V.S.A. § 1-104 gives the adoptee and the adoptive parent "all the rights and duties of that relationship including the right of inheritance and succession from or through each other and the kindred of the adoptive parent." The adoptee inherits from grandparents, aunts, and cousins on the adoptive side, not only from the adoptive parent.

15A V.S.A. § 1-105 closes the other door on the same day. A final adoption decree ends the former parent's right to inherit from or through the adoptee, and ends the adoptee's right to inherit through intestacy from or through each former parent and that parent's kindred.

Stepparent adoptions are the exception, and Vermont writes it down. 15A V.S.A. § 4-102(b)(2) says an adoption by a stepparent does not affect the right of the adoptee, or a descendant of the adoptee, to inherit through or from the adoptee's former parent. A child adopted by a stepparent keeps both bloodlines.

Children of unmarried parents

14 V.S.A. § 315 makes marital status irrelevant to the child: an individual is the child of his or her parents "regardless of their marital status." Parentage may be established in a proceeding under Title 15C.

The section runs one way only. A parent may not inherit from a child unless that parent openly acknowledged the child and did not refuse to support the child. Section 315(c) adds a flat bar: a parent may not inherit from a child conceived of sexual assault where a parental rights and responsibilities order under 15 V.S.A. § 665(f) covers the child. A child in either situation still inherits from the parent.

Killers, Disclaimers, and Missing Heirs

Vermont carries two slayer statutes

14 V.S.A. § 322 forfeits the share of anyone who intentionally and unlawfully kills the decedent, and that share passes to the remaining heirs or beneficiaries. The proof standard is generous to the estate: a conviction record is admissible and "shall conclusively establish" the killing, and the section works whether the killer would have taken by will or by intestacy.

14 V.S.A. § 1971 sits behind it as a general principle. Where any property, interest, power, or benefit reaches someone through an intentional and unlawful killing, the court may distribute, reform, revoke, or otherwise dispose of it so the killer takes no profit. Valid liens and mortgages survive that reshuffle. Between the two sections, a Vermont judge can reach a survivorship interest or a beneficiary designation that section 322 alone would not describe.

A disclaimer runs on a nine-month clock

An heir who does not want a share can refuse it under Vermont's Uniform Disclaimer of Property Interests Act, 14 V.S.A. chapter 83. Vermont's version runs on a nine-month clock. Section 1952 requires delivery of the disclaimer no later than nine months after the death for a present interest, in person or by registered or certified mail, with a copy filed in the Probate Division of the district where the estate is pending. Where the disclaimed asset is real property, a copy also goes into the land records of the town where the land lies, because Vermont records deeds at the town clerk rather than a county registry.

Section 1954 supplies the effect: the property devolves as if the disclaimant had predeceased the decedent, and the disclaimer relates back to the date of death. So a disclaimed share drops to the disclaimant's own descendants wherever section 314 would give them a share by representation.

An heir nobody can find

14 V.S.A. § 336 handles the heir who has vanished. Where a person entitled to a share has been absent and unheard of for six years, two of them after the death, the court may order that share distributed as if the absent person had not survived the decedent, after notice under the Rules of Probate Procedure. If that person later proves to be alive, the share is still theirs, and they may sue under the statute to recover it from whoever received it.

When No Heir Turns Up, the Town Takes It

Vermont escheat does not run to the State. 14 V.S.A. § 681 lets the selectboard of the town where the decedent last lived petition the Probate Division for a hearing. Section 683 then assigns the personal estate to that town and the real estate to the towns where the land sits, and it earmarks the property "for the use of schools in the towns respectively."

Section 684 then leaves the door open for a long time. An heir, legatee, or other person entitled to any part of the estate has 17 years from the date of the decree to file a claim and prove it. A claimant who proves the claim takes possession, or is owed the sale proceeds less reasonable charges for caring for the estate. After 17 years the claim is barred.

The 2009 Reset Every Stale Source Misses

Vermont rewrote its inheritance law in one act, and three whole chapters died with it. 2009 Act 55, § 4 repealed 14 V.S.A. chapter 41 (Survivors' Rights and Allowances), chapter 43 (Estates in Lieu of Dower and Curtesy), and chapter 45 (Descent, Omitted Issue and Lapsed Legacies), all effective June 1, 2009. Section 5 of the same act created chapter 42, which is where every live rule on this page lives. All three dead chapters still appear in the Title 14 chapter list under their original names, so a source that cites 14 V.S.A. § 551 or § 401 looks plausible and is citing repealed law.

Two consequences follow. Section 302 states the first in six words: "The estates of dower and curtesy are abolished." A surviving spouse in Vermont has the statutory share above and the protections in chapter 42, and no common law life estate in the decedent's land.

The second is a date-of-death rule. Section 14(a) of Act 55 says section 5 "shall apply only to the estates of persons dying on or after the effective date," which is June 1, 2009. An estate opened today for a death before that date runs on the repealed chapters instead. Ask the Probate Division which scheme applies before you divide anything in an old or reopened estate.

How to Map a Vermont Intestate Estate

Work the sequence in this order:

  1. Separate probate property from anything passing by beneficiary designation, survivorship, a trust, an enhanced life estate deed, or a transfer-on-death vehicle title. Only probate property follows chapter 42.
  2. Confirm each candidate heir outlived the decedent by 120 hours under section 337 before counting anyone in.
  3. Read the will, if any document exists, for an exclusion clause under section 301(b), even where it gives nothing away.
  4. Subtract debts, funeral charges, the section 316 and 317 allowances, and administration expenses before you divide, because section 311 computes the spouse's share on the remainder.
  5. Pick the matching row of section 311 for the spouse, checking whose descendants survive rather than how many.
  6. Send the balance down the section 314 ladder, splitting any branch by right of representation under section 314(c).
  7. Check whether an heir has disclaimed, been convicted of the killing, or gone missing for six years.

If one person turns out to inherit everything, 14 V.S.A. § 1852 can strip the paperwork down. The court may waive further administration where the moving party is the sole heir and the sole fiduciary and the decedent owned no real property in Vermont, and that order waives the inventory, waives or discharges the bond, and dispenses with further filings apart from the final affidavit of administration. No dollar limit appears in the test. Read who counts as the sole heir rather than looking for a threshold that does not decide the question.

A valid will replaces every rule above with the decedent's own plan and lets the decedent name the executor who settles the estate. What a valid Vermont will requires covers the signing formalities that make one hold up.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who inherits if there is no will in Vermont?

The surviving spouse inherits first under 14 V.S.A. § 311, taking the entire intestate estate where no descendant survives or where all surviving descendants are also the spouse's, and one half where the decedent left a descendant who is not the spouse's. The balance passes under § 314 to the decedent's descendants, then parents, then siblings and their descendants, then grandparents, then next of kin in equal degree.

Does a surviving spouse get everything in Vermont?

Often, yes. The spouse takes the whole intestate estate whenever no descendant of the decedent survives, and also where every surviving descendant of the decedent is also a descendant of the spouse. The share drops to one half only where a surviving descendant is not the spouse's descendant and the decedent's will does not exclude that person.

Do stepchildren inherit under Vermont intestacy?

A stepchild the decedent never adopted is not a descendant of the decedent and takes nothing under § 314. Where the stepparent did adopt, 15A V.S.A. § 1-104 gives that child full inheritance rights in the adoptive family, and § 4-102(b)(2) lets the child keep inheriting from the former parent's side as well.

Do half-siblings inherit the same share in Vermont?

Yes. 14 V.S.A. § 331 gives kindred of the half blood the same share they would take if they were of the whole blood, and Vermont attaches no ancestral-property exception to it. A half-sibling stands inside the sibling class on equal terms.

What happens if no heir can be found in Vermont?

The town acts, not the State. Under 14 V.S.A. § 681 the selectboard of the town where the decedent last lived petitions the Probate Division, and § 683 assigns the estate to the town or towns for the use of their schools. A person entitled to the estate has 17 years from the decree to file and prove a claim under § 684.

Does Vermont tax an inheritance?

Vermont collects no inheritance tax. 32 V.S.A. chapter 181 is printed as "§§ 6501-6952. Repealed." A Vermont estate tax still exists at 32 V.S.A. § 7442a, and it charges nothing on a Vermont taxable estate under $5,000,000.00 and 16 percent of the excess above that figure, apportioned to Vermont assets. Federal estate tax can reach a large estate on top of it.

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

Sources:

It is not legal advice.

Information current as of August 4, 2026

Settled Estate is not a law firm, and this content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Probate laws and procedures in Vermont can change. Consult with a qualified attorney for advice specific to your situation. Full disclaimer.

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