When someone dies in Arkansas without a will, the state already has a plan for them. It is written into the intestate succession statute and it decides who gets what, down to fractions. Most people assume everything goes to the spouse. In Arkansas, it usually does not.
The part that surprises families
Arkansas is one of the last states in the country that still uses the old common-law concepts of dower and curtesy. Here is what that means in plain terms.
If a married person dies with children and no will, the surviving spouse does not inherit the estate. The children do. The spouse’s protection is a dower or curtesy interest: one-third of the personal property outright, and a one-third life estate in the real estate. A life estate is not ownership — it is the right to use the property while you are alive. When the surviving spouse dies, even that interest disappears, and the children own everything.
Read that again in terms of the family home. The surviving spouse does not inherit the house. The children own it, subject to the spouse’s right to use a one-third interest during their lifetime. If any of those children are minors, their shares must be managed under court supervision until they turn eighteen — at which point they receive their inheritance outright, ready or not.
That means a surviving spouse can end up unable to sell, refinance, or borrow against their own home without the cooperation of their children — and possibly a court. Nobody plans for that on purpose. It happens because they never wrote the plan down, so the state’s default filled the gap.
Planning, not paperwork
This is the whole reason we talk about planning. The documents are the cheap part. Deciding what actually happens to your family — your spouse keeping the home, your children inheriting at the right time and in the right way — and making sure the law carries it out, is the point.
For most Arkansas families, that means a revocable living trust at the center of the plan: it avoids probate, keeps your affairs private, lets your spouse keep full control of the home, and holds a minor child’s inheritance under terms you choose instead of a court file.
If you already have a plan with us, this is a good moment to make sure it still says what you want it to say. Life moves. A plan written five years ago was written for a life you may not have anymore.
Nothing to do today. Just worth knowing how Arkansas’s default works — so you can be sure you have chosen something better than it.
L. Jennings Law helps Arkansas families plan as good stewards of what they’ve been given. If you’d like to review or start your plan, we’d be glad to visit with you.
