Arkansas Intestate Succession Chart: Spouse, Children, and Heirs

Arkansas intestate succession is the set of statutory rules that decide who inherits when someone dies without a valid will. A surviving spouse does not automatically take everything. What the spouse receives depends on whether the deceased left children, and if there are no children, on how long the marriage lasted. The rules sit primarily in Arkansas Code 28-9-214 and its companion sections, and they can produce results families don’t expect.

Spouse and Children

If the deceased leaves both a surviving spouse and descendants — children, grandchildren, or further down the line — the estate is split between them. The spouse receives one-third of the personal property (bank accounts, vehicles, investments, household goods), and the descendants divide the remaining two-thirds equally.¹

Real property works differently. The surviving spouse receives a one-third life estate in the deceased’s real estate, meaning the spouse can use and occupy that share during their lifetime but does not own it outright. When the spouse dies, the interest passes to the deceased’s descendants.²

Children split their portion equally. If a child died before the parent but left children of their own, those grandchildren step into their parent’s share. Arkansas follows per stirpes distribution — each branch of the family tree takes the share its ancestor would have received.¹

Spouse but No Children

Marriage length becomes the critical factor when there are no descendants. If the couple was continuously married for at least three years before the death, the surviving spouse inherits the entire estate — both real and personal property.¹

If the marriage lasted less than three years, the spouse takes only 50%. The other half passes to the deceased’s surviving parents in equal shares, or to the sole surviving parent if only one is living.¹ Short-term spouses are often caught off guard by this; splitting the estate with in-laws is rarely what anyone assumes.

No Surviving Spouse

Without a spouse, the descendants inherit the whole estate. If there are no descendants either, the estate moves outward through the family in a fixed order:

Both parents share equally. If only one parent survives, that parent takes the full amount.
If no parents survive, brothers and sisters inherit equal shares. Half-siblings inherit the same as full siblings. When a sibling has predeceased the intestate but left children, those nieces and nephews take their parent’s share.³
If no siblings or their descendants survive, the estate passes to grandparents, then to aunts and uncles. Cousins can inherit by stepping into a deceased aunt’s or uncle’s share.

If no qualifying relative can be found under the main statute, Arkansas Code 28-9-215 supplies a fallback. The estate first goes to a surviving spouse even if the marriage was shorter than three years. If there is no surviving spouse, it passes to the heirs of the deceased’s last spouse, provided that marriage ended by death rather than divorce. Only if no one qualifies under any of these categories does the estate escheat, and in Arkansas it goes to the county where the deceased lived, not to the state.⁴

Which Children Count as Heirs

Not every parent-child relationship creates an automatic inheritance right, and this is where the statute trips families up most often.

Adopted Children

Legally adopted children inherit on the same terms as biological children. “Descendants” in the intestate statutes explicitly includes adopted children and their own descendants.¹ Stepchildren and foster children have no inheritance rights unless they were legally adopted.

Children Born Outside of Marriage

A child born outside of marriage can always inherit from their mother and her relatives with no special showing. Inheriting from the biological father is harder. The child or their representative must file a claim against the father’s estate within 180 days of the father’s death, and at least one of the following must be true: a court previously established paternity, the father acknowledged the child, or other qualifying proof of the relationship exists.⁵ That 180-day window is strict and easy to miss during the confusion after a death.

Posthumous Children

A child conceived before the parent’s death but born afterward inherits as if born during the parent’s lifetime.⁶ The rule reaches lineal descendants only. A collateral relative such as a sibling must already have been born at the time of death to inherit.

Assets That Bypass Intestate Succession

Intestate rules apply only to assets that pass through probate. A large share of most estates never enters probate at all because the assets carry their own transfer mechanism. If a beneficiary designation names one person and the intestate statute would send the same asset somewhere else, the designation wins.

Real estate or bank accounts held as joint tenants with right of survivorship transfer automatically to the surviving co-owner.
Life insurance, 401(k)s, IRAs, and annuities pass directly to the named beneficiary.
Payable-on-death bank accounts and transfer-on-death brokerage accounts go straight to the named person.
Property held in a living trust distributes under the trust terms.

Outdated beneficiary forms — an ex-spouse still listed on a life insurance policy, for example — override the intestate statutes entirely. Checking those designations is often more consequential than anything the succession chart does.

Debts Come Before Heirs

Heirs receive nothing until creditors are paid. Administration costs, funeral expenses, federal debts and taxes, medical bills from the final illness, state debts and taxes, and general unsecured debts are all satisfied first, in that priority. Arkansas provides some protection for the surviving spouse and minor children through homestead rights, and dower and curtesy rights in real property take priority over creditor claims, so the surviving spouse’s life estate generally cannot be wiped out by the deceased’s debts.⁷²

The 120-Hour Survival Rule

When two relatives die close together, such as in a single accident, the order of death can redirect an entire inheritance. Under Arkansas law, a person who cannot be shown by clear and convincing evidence to have survived the deceased by at least 120 hours (five days) is treated as having died first.⁸ The rule prevents property from cycling through a second estate in rapid succession and reaching unintended people.

When Full Probate Isn’t Required

Not every estate needs a formal probate case. If the total value of the deceased’s property, minus any debts secured by that property, is $100,000 or less, Arkansas allows heirs to collect the estate using a small estate affidavit.⁹ The affidavit process skips court supervision and can resolve a straightforward estate in weeks rather than the many months full probate typically takes.

Real estate outside Arkansas is a separate matter. Land is governed by the law of the state where it sits, so out-of-state real property follows that state’s intestate rules and usually requires an ancillary probate proceeding there.¹⁰ Personal property follows the law of the state where the deceased lived, so for an Arkansas resident, Arkansas rules apply to all personal property no matter where the accounts or items happen to be.

1
Justia. Arkansas Code 28-9-214 – Tables of Descents
2
Justia. Arkansas Code 28-11-301 – Land Generally
3
Arkansas Courts. Arkansas Circuit Courts Judges Benchbook Probate Division
4
Justia. Arkansas Code 28-9-215 – Devolution Where No Heir Under Section 28-9-214
5
Justia. Arkansas Code 28-9-209 – Legitimacy of Child
6
FindLaw. Arkansas Code 28-9-210 – Posthumous Descendants
7
Justia. Arkansas Code 28-39-201 – Rights of Surviving Spouse and Minor Children
8
Justia. Arkansas Code 28-10-203 – Requirement of Survival by 120 Hours
9
Justia. Arkansas Code 28-41-101 – Collection of Small Estates by Affidavit
10
Justia. Arkansas Code 28-42-102 – Application for Ancillary Letters