Everyone Already Has a Will

What Tennessee and Michigan intestacy rules reveal about the real cost of doing nothing—and why the most consequential estate planning decision many families make is the one they think they are postponing.

One of the most clarifying ideas in estate planning is also one of the simplest: everyone already has a will. The question is only whether it is yours or the state’s.

When a person dies without a valid estate plan, Tennessee or Michigan does not leave property in limbo. Each state applies its own intestacy statute—a legislatively written default plan that determines who inherits what, and in what proportions. In that sense, every resident already has a backup plan on the books. The difficulty is that the legislature’s plan was designed to be administrable, not personal.

For trusted advisors—CPAs, financial planners, and attorneys who work alongside clients over the years—that framing can shift the planning conversation meaningfully. Many clients do not experience inaction as a choice. But inaction is a choice. And when they make it, someone else fills in the blanks.

What Intestate Succession Actually Does

Intestate succession is the framework that answers a narrow but consequential question: Who inherits the decedent’s probate estate when no valid will or trust controls the outcome? The answer, in both Tennessee and Michigan, depends on a hierarchy of relationships—surviving spouse first, then descendants, then parents, then collateral relatives—with the specific shares and ordering determined by statute.

That matters for two distinct reasons, and it helps to keep them separate.

The first is distributional. In uncomplicated first-marriage families, the default rules may produce a result that feels broadly acceptable. But broadly acceptable is not the same as intentional. The moment a family becomes even slightly more layered—a second marriage, stepchildren who are treated as children, an estranged sibling, an unmarried partner, a charitable interest, a business interest that should not be fractured—the gap between what the statute provides and what the client actually wanted can become very large, very quickly.

The second reason is procedural, and it is one that surprises people outside the estate planning space. Having a will and avoiding probate are not the same thing. A will directs how probate assets pass through probate—it provides the roadmap the court follows. It does not eliminate the court process. A person who dies intestate does not necessarily face a harder road procedurally; they simply have less control over where the road leads.

“The client who says ‘I don’t have a will, but my family will work it out’ is often underestimating both the distribution rules and the administrative friction that follows.”

The meaningful exception comes when assets have been thoughtfully positioned to clear the probate path entirely—most often through a funded revocable trust, coordinated beneficiary designations, and appropriate titling. Short of that, both testate and intestate estates typically involve some level of court involvement. Both Tennessee and Michigan offer simplified or small-estate procedures in limited circumstances, but those are still statutory processes. They reduce friction; they do not eliminate it.

Tennessee: The Home-Base Example

For advisors working with families in Middle Tennessee—Murfreesboro, Nashville, Franklin, and across Rutherford County—the default rules can be illustrated clearly with a few common scenarios.

A married decedent with a spouse and mutual children only

In Tennessee, when a married person dies without a will and leaves behind a spouse and children who are mutual to both spouses, the surviving spouse does not automatically receive the entire estate. Instead, Tennessee provides the spouse the greater of one-third of the intestate estate or a child’s equal share—and the children divide the remainder.

That surprises many clients who assume a straightforward first-marriage family means everything goes to the spouse. Tennessee does not work that way by default.

Unmarried, no descendants, parents already gone

When a single person dies without children and without living parents, Tennessee generally moves the estate to siblings—and if a sibling has predeceased, that sibling’s descendants can step into the line by representation.

That result is not inherently wrong. For many clients, it is exactly what they would have wanted. But sometimes it is not. Sometimes the client would have preferred a niece, a close friend, a charitable cause, or a more tailored allocation. The statute answers the ownership question; it does not capture the intention behind it.

Nonmarital children and stepchildren

These two categories produce some of the most emotionally charged planning conversations, and they deserve clear treatment.

Nonmarital children are not excluded simply because their parents were unmarried. If the legal parent-child relationship has been established under Tennessee law, the child can inherit through intestacy. The issue is not the child’s status—it is whether the legal recognition exists.

Stepchildren, by contrast, do not inherit by default through intestacy simply by virtue of the family relationship. Unless a stepchild has been legally adopted or otherwise fits within a recognized legal parent-child status under Tennessee law, the stepchild falls outside the intestacy succession line entirely.

For professionals who regularly work with blended families in and around Nashville, Murfreesboro, or Franklin, that point alone often justifies a more intentional plan. Many clients genuinely assume that “the kids will all be treated the same”—when the statute does not treat all the kids the same at all.

When probate is required in Tennessee

Probate is generally required in Tennessee when the decedent owned assets solely in his or her individual name and those assets do not pass automatically by beneficiary designation, survivorship feature, or trust ownership. A will provides the instructions; it does not remove the court process.

Tennessee offers a small-estate affidavit option when qualifying probate assets fall below a statutory threshold—often discussed in the range of $25,000. That procedure reduces administrative friction considerably for modest estates, but it remains a statutory process rather than a clean bypass of court involvement. The practical message is worth making explicit to clients: “having a will” and “avoiding court involvement” are two separate planning goals that require two separate strategies.

Michigan: A Useful Contrast

Michigan provides an instructive comparison, particularly for advisors serving families in Midland and Saginaw. In the nuclear-family scenario, Michigan’s default rule is notably more spouse-centric than Tennessee’s.

A married decedent with a spouse and mutual children only

In Michigan, when a married decedent is survived by a spouse and only mutual descendants, the surviving spouse receives the entire intestate estate. The children inherit nothing from probate property in that fact pattern.

That is the sharpest contrast in this comparison. The same family—first marriage, only mutual children—produces meaningfully different outcomes depending on whether the family is in Tennessee or Michigan. For advisors working across state lines, that distinction is a practical reason to verify rather than assume.

Unmarried, no descendants, parents predeceased

Here, Michigan and Tennessee converge. In the absence of a surviving spouse, descendants, and living parents, Michigan also moves toward the descendants of the decedent’s parents—siblings, and by representation, nieces and nephews. The practical outcome in this scenario is broadly similar between the two states.

Nonmarital children and stepchildren in Michigan

Michigan follows the same conceptual pattern. Nonmarital children can inherit if the legal parent-child relationship has been established. Stepchildren, absent legal adoption or recognized parent-child status, do not inherit by default under Michigan’s intestacy statute.

Families in the Midland or Saginaw areas who use relational language loosely in everyday life—referring to stepchildren simply as “the kids”—often find this element of the statute unexpectedly significant.

Procedure in Michigan

Michigan has probate, affidavit-based alternatives, and simplified procedures for qualifying smaller estates. In practice, the Michigan probate framework can feel somewhat more layered when it comes to the categories, thresholds, and estate composition that determine which procedural path applies. That makes it worth paying particular attention to how an estate is structured and what the asset mix looks like when evaluating options.

A Side-by-Side View

The Deeper Planning Point

The real lesson here is not simply that Tennessee and Michigan differ—though they do, in ways that matter. The deeper point is that doing nothing is not a neutral position.

A client in Murfreesboro or in Midland who has never signed a will, never established a trust, and never coordinated how assets are titled and designated has still made a planning decision. That client has opted into the legislature’s plan. Sometimes the legislature’s plan is close enough. More often, in our experience, it is not—or at minimum, the client would have made different choices if they had understood what they were agreeing to by default.

And even where the distributional outcome of the intestacy statute is acceptable, the procedural piece remains. Probate assets typically still require some level of court involvement unless they have been structured to clear that path—through a funded revocable trust and coordinated beneficiary and titling work. That is why a complete estate plan is rarely just a will. It is a will, often a trust, and the intentional coordination of how assets are owned and designated.

For families with straightforward goals and uncomplicated structures, the gap between the statute and their actual wishes may be manageable. For families with blended relationships, stepchildren who are emotionally full members of the family but are not legally in the succession line, nonmarital children whose status requires documentation, unequal intended distributions, or closely held business interests that cannot be cleanly divided by formula—the gap can become a genuine problem.

The only way to replace the state’s default plan with something intentional is to create a plan and implement it correctly. Because the answer can differ meaningfully between Tennessee and Michigan—and because the procedural landscape varies as well—it matters to work with counsel who understands both the substantive inheritance rules and the probate process that follows.