In Illinois, everyone already has an estate plan, whether they wrote one or not. If you die without a Will, the state of Illinois has one waiting for you, and it was not written with your family in mind.
That plan is called intestate succession, and it follows a fixed formula laid out in the Illinois Probate Act. It does not ask who raised your children, who depended on your income, or who you trusted to manage your affairs. It simply follows a chart.
For families in the southwest suburbs of Chicago, this becomes real the moment a probate court in Cook, Will, or DuPage County gets involved. A judge decides who administers your estate. State law determines who inherits it, not your family or you.
This gap is more common than most people assume. Roughly three out of four Americans do not currently have a Will, according to Caring.com’s 2025 Wills and Estate Planning Study. Most say they have not gotten around to it, which is exactly why Illinois’s default plan is worth understanding before you need it.
How Illinois Intestate Succession Actually Works
Illinois lays out the order of inheritance in 755 ILCS 5/2-1 of the Probate Act of 1975, and the formula depends entirely on who survives you.
If you leave a spouse and children, your spouse receives half of your estate, and your children split the other half. If you leave children but no spouse, everything passes to your children. With no children, your spouse inherits the entire estate instead.
This surprises a lot of people. Many assume a surviving spouse automatically receives everything. In Illinois, that is only true when no children are involved. A blended family, a second marriage, or kids from a prior relationship can split an inheritance in ways no one intended.
If you have no spouse and no children, Illinois works down a longer list of relatives, starting with your parents and continuing through siblings and more distant relatives. In the rare case that no heir can be located at all, your estate can pass to the state of Illinois itself.
What a Will Gives You
A Will gives you control that intestate succession does not. You choose your executor instead of leaving that decision to a judge, and you name a guardian for your minor children instead of leaving that decision to a court that has never met your family. You can also provide for people who matter to you but have no legal claim under Illinois law, such as a partner you never married or a stepchild you never formally adopted.
Consider a household where one spouse has children from an earlier marriage. Under Illinois’ formula, those children inherit alongside the surviving stepparent, whether or not the family ever intended an even split. A Will lets you decide that outcome yourself instead of leaving it to a statute that was never written with your family’s structure in mind.
Without a Will, none of that is possible. The state’s formula recognizes bloodlines and marriage certificates. It does not recognize relationships.
Why a Will Alone Does Not Avoid Probate
A Will directs who receives your assets and decides who is in charge of your estate. What it does not do is keep your estate out of probate court.
Whether you die with a Will or without one, an estate that includes real estate or more than $150,000 in personal property still needs to go through Illinois probate. Illinois raised that small estate threshold from $100,000 to $150,000 in 2025 under Public Act 104-0346, but the moment an estate includes any real estate, that shortcut disappears, and formal probate takes over regardless of value.
The difference a Will makes is what the court has to work with. A judge overseeing an estate with a Will is carrying out your instructions. A judge overseeing an estate without one is filling in blanks using a formula you never agreed to.
If avoiding probate altogether matters to your family, that takes a Trust-based plan built around your specific assets, not a Will and not a hope that things work out on their own.
What This Looks Like for Families in the Southwest Suburbs
We have sat across the table from families in Palos Heights, Orland Park, and the surrounding suburbs who assumed a spouse would take over if something happened. In some cases, that assumption held. In blended families, family businesses, and households with adult children from a prior marriage, it often did not.
The families who avoid this outcome are not necessarily wealthier or older. They took the time to name their own executor, guardian, and plan for the people who depend on them, instead of letting Illinois assign one by default.
Start with one question: If something happened to you this week, who would Illinois choose to raise your children and manage everything you have built? If that answer gives you pause, that is the conversation worth having with our office next.
