Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Missouri

Re: death without a will

If there is no surving spouse or children, then the decedent's surviving parent(s) would take the estate. If there is no surving parent, then it would be divided among the decedent's siblings "per stalks." That means that each sibling, alive yoru passed would get their equal share. If a sibling predeceased the decedent, their share gets divided equally among their children (or grand children if a child has died, leaving children. It can be very confusing if you are new to it.

To answer your original question, if there was no wife, child or parent living when the person died, and they had a sister and two brothers (one of whom is already dead leaving two shildren) then the estate woudl go one third to the sister, one third to the surving brother and one sixth to the two surving children of the dead brother. That should make it about as clear as mud, to quote one of my law school professors.

Keep in mind, that thi property does nto automitacally pass to these people. IT is merely the guideline for how the Probate Judge is to distribute the estate when the intestate estte is openend. DO NOT LET ANYONE START TREATING THE DECEDENT'S PROPERTY AS THEIR OWN, BECAUSE THEY THINK THEY ARE THE RIGHTFUL HEIR. Missouri law assumes that the decedet had a lve child that their family did nto know about, and requires specific public notice of the estate, so that the love child (or their guardian) can come forward and claim the estate. Age does nto matter.

Re: death without a will

In many cases where a person dies without a Will leaving behind assets which he or she owned in his or her own name, it is necessary to open an estate in the Probate Court. The estate would be referred to as an Intestate Estate since there was no Will. The Missouri statute on intestacy sets forth the order in which the heirs receive their share of the estate in such cases. If the deceased did not leave a surviving spouse, I believe that the children of the deceased come first and take equal shares of everything. Only if there were no surviving children of the deceased, and no surviving spouse, would other heirs take anything at all.