When an Arizona resident dies, three sets of rules decide who receives what: the documents they signed, the way their property is titled, and - for anything the first two miss - the state's intestate succession statutes. This guide walks all three, sourced to the statutes, including the one rule that regularly shocks remarried couples.
Who writes the inheritance rules
No documents: the statutes decide
A fixed order - spouse, descendants, parents, siblings - with a blended-family rule that surprises everyone.
Documents and designations decide
Wills, trusts, deeds, and beneficiary forms override the defaults entirely.
First: Arizona is a community property state
Property acquired during a marriage is generally community property - each spouse owns half. Property owned before the marriage, or received by gift or inheritance, stays separate. This split matters enormously at death, because the statutes treat the two categories differently.
With a will: the will controls what probate touches
A valid Arizona will directs everything that passes through probate. What it does not override: beneficiary designations, a recorded beneficiary deed, and survivorship title. Those pass outside the will, to whoever the designation names - even an ex-spouse left on an old form.
Without a will: the intestate order
Under A.R.S. § 14-2102, a surviving spouse inherits everything when there are no surviving children, or every surviving child is also the child of the surviving spouse. The blended-family rule: if even one surviving child is not the surviving spouse's child, the spouse receives one-half of the separate property and no share of the decedent's half of the community property. Read that again if either spouse has children from a prior relationship - the house a surviving spouse lives in is not automatically theirs.
When there is no surviving spouse, A.R.S. § 14-2103 sends the estate down this ladder:
- the decedent's descendants, by representation
- if none: the decedent's parents, equally or to the survivor
- if none: descendants of the parents (siblings, then nieces and nephews)
- if none: half to paternal grandparents or their descendants, half to maternal
Only when no relative can be found does property go to the state - rare, but real. What is common: the statute's choices simply not matching what the person would have wanted. Intestacy is a default, not a plan.
What skips these rules entirely
Assets with their own routes never meet the intestate statutes: living trust assets, retirement accounts and life insurance with named beneficiaries, POD and TOD accounts, beneficiary-deed real estate, and survivorship property. A fully routed estate leaves nothing for the statutes to decide - that is the whole idea behind probate avoidance.
Sources
- A.R.S. § 14-2102 (intestate share of surviving spouse) (checked 2026-07-26)
- A.R.S. § 14-2103 (heirs other than surviving spouse) (full text, checked 2026-08-09)
Educational information only, not legal advice. Intestate shares have statutory details beyond this summary - confirm your situation with a licensed professional.