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Intestate Succession Under The Uniform Probate Code, Thomas J. Mulder

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The pervasive social policy underlying the Anglo-American law on succession of property at death is freedom of testation. Our law makes meaningful one's right to decide who shall inherit his property by providing a legal instrument, the will, to distribute property to chosen recipients. When a man dies without having exercised this right, however, the laws of intestate succession determine who shall receive his property, and in what shares it shall be received. In effect, the laws of intestate succession are an estate plan written for the decedent by his state legislature. These laws do not function as a restriction …