It is incredibly easy to procrastinate about the creation of an estate plan. After all, if you are still healthy and relatively young, you have hundreds of tomorrows in which to think about your own death. Why should you have to do it today?
The simplest answer is that while you may be well below the average age of mortality, you have no way to know what the future will bring. An incident at work, a random act of violence or an unexpected medical event could leave you permanently incapacitated or dead with no forewarning.
What happens if you die without an estate plan in Texas?
You lose control over your legacy
The simplest explanation for what happens when you die intestate or without a will is that your wishes no longer matter. Instead, it will be Texas state law that determines who will receive which of your assets.
State law aims to protect those with close familial relationships, so spouses and children have strong protections. They will generally inherit everything unless you have a will on record. If you don’t have a spouse or children, parents are usually the ones with the primary inheritance right, although other people in your immediate family could also inherit from your estate if you also do not have surviving parents.
Eventually, if the state cannot locate family members, your estate could become the property of the state of Texas itself. Especially if you don’t have a spouse or have unique wishes about your legacy, it is very important to create an estate plan well before you might ever need one.
Putting your estate wishes in writing will help protect your intended legacy when you die.