If you die in Colorado without a valid will, you do not get to decide who inherits your home, your bank accounts, or your belongings. The state decides for you. A set of statutes called the intestacy rules acts as a default will, and it may split your estate in ways you would never have chosen, especially in blended families where a spouse and children from a prior relationship are both in the picture.
Here is exactly who inherits under Colorado law when there is no will, and how a simple handwritten will lets you take back control.
What "intestate" means in Colorado
Dying "intestate" means dying without a valid will. When that happens, your estate passes through probate in the district court of the county where you lived, and it is distributed according to a fixed statutory order rather than your personal wishes. Heirs cannot be added or removed based on how close you were to them. The Colorado Judicial Branch publishes the official self-help instructions and forms for opening an estate with no will, and every heir living on the date of death must be identified and listed for the court.1
One thing to clear up first: Colorado is a separate-property state, not a community-property state. That means there is no automatic 50/50 split of marital assets at death the way there is in a handful of other jurisdictions. Instead, Colorado protects a surviving spouse through the intestacy shares below and, separately, through an elective share.
If you have a surviving spouse
The share your spouse receives depends entirely on whether you and your spouse have children together, and whether either of you has children from another relationship. Colorado Revised Statutes section 15-11-102 sets out each scenario, and when more than one applies, the one producing the largest share for the spouse controls.2
| Your family situation | What your spouse inherits |
|---|---|
| No descendants and no surviving parents | The entire intestate estate |
| All your descendants are also your spouse's, and your spouse has no other descendants | The entire intestate estate |
| No descendants, but a parent survives you | The first $300,000 (adjusted for cost of living) plus three-fourths of the rest |
| All your descendants are shared, but your spouse has other descendants too | The first $225,000 (adjusted) plus one-half of the rest |
| You have one or more descendants who are not your spouse's children | The first $150,000 (adjusted) plus one-half of the rest |
The dollar figures in the statute are base amounts that increase over time under a statutory cost-of-living adjustment, so the current numbers run somewhat higher.2 Whatever the spouse does not take passes to your descendants. This is where blended families get caught off guard: if you have a child from a prior relationship, your spouse does not inherit everything, and part of your estate goes to that child by operation of law.
Denver and Colorado Springs example. Say you live in Denver, you are married, and you have one child from a previous marriage. You always assumed your spouse would inherit your house. Under intestacy, your spouse takes only the first statutory amount plus half of the remaining estate, and your child takes the other half. That can force a sale of the family home to divide the value.
If you have no surviving spouse
When there is no surviving spouse, Colorado section 15-11-103 sends the estate down a strict line of relatives, stopping at the first level where someone is alive.3
- Your descendants. Children first, and if a child has died, that child's share drops to their own children (your grandchildren), distributed per capita at each generation.
- Your parents. If you leave no descendants, your estate is split equally between surviving parents.
- Your siblings. If no parent survives, the estate passes to the descendants of your parents, meaning your brothers and sisters, and their children if a sibling has died.
- Grandparents and their descendants. If none of the above survive, the estate moves up to grandparents and then out to aunts, uncles, and cousins.
If no relative can be found anywhere in this chain, the estate ultimately escheats to the state. A residents of Boulder or Aurora with no close family and no will can genuinely have their savings end up with the state rather than a chosen friend, partner, or charity.
You cannot fully cut out a spouse
Colorado does not have forced heirship, so you are free to leave your children nothing if you write a will that says so. A spouse is different. Even a validly disinherited spouse can claim an elective share under section 15-11-202, equal to one-half of the marital-property portion of the "augmented estate."4
The elective share grows with the length of the marriage. The marital-property percentage climbs each year and reaches 100% of the augmented estate at ten years of marriage, so a long-married spouse can claim up to half of the augmented estate no matter what your will says.4 Plan around your spouse, not against them.
The simplest fix: a handwritten will
The good news is that avoiding all of this in Colorado is genuinely simple. Colorado recognizes the holographic will, a handwritten will that needs no witnesses at all. Under section 15-11-502, a will is valid as a holographic will, witnessed or not, as long as the signature and the material portions of the document are in your own handwriting.5 The material portions are the parts that actually give away your property and name who gets what.
A basic holographic will in your own hand can be as direct as:
Template: simple holographic will
This is the last will of Jane A. Doe.
I revoke all prior wills.
I give my entire estate to my husband, John B. Doe.
If he does not survive me, I give it in equal shares to my children.
I name my sister, Mary Doe, as my personal representative.
Signed: Jane A. Doe, Denver, Colorado, this 3rd day of July, 2026.
Once it is written and signed, you can keep it somewhere safe, or you can deposit it with the district court for safekeeping during your lifetime under section 15-11-515, where it is sealed and released only to you or someone you authorize in writing.6
If you want a clean, correctly worded document rather than a blank page, read our step-by-step guide on how to write a will in Colorado, or start yours now with our Colorado will builder. A short afternoon of writing is all it takes to replace the state's default plan with your own.
Sources
- 1Colorado Judicial Branch: Instructions for Probate without a Will (coloradojudicial.gov)
- 2C.R.S. 15-11-102: Share of spouse (law.justia.com)
- 3C.R.S. 15-11-103: Share of heirs other than surviving spouse (colorado.public.law)
- 4C.R.S. 15-11-202: Elective-share (law.justia.com)
- 5C.R.S. 15-11-502: Execution, witnessed or notarized wills, holographic wills (colorado.public.law)
- 6C.R.S. 15-11-515: Deposit of will with court in testator's lifetime (law.justia.com)
About the author
Max Kuch
Max Kuch writes about estate planning, wills and inheritance for Online Will Colorado. He gathers the rules from the Colorado statutes and the leading public data, then explains them in plain, accessible language so anyone can put their wishes in writing.