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Carol
If your dad owned assets outright and passed without a will, the state he lived in has laws which govern how property is passed.
But no, no one has to make a will - it just makes life so much simpler for families if there is one. The headline figure in the UK is that 2 in 3 people procrastinate for too long (mea culpa!) and never get it done; so every few years the legal profession calls an amnesty and publicises Buy One Get One Free offers and the like in the hope of making us get our act together. Your state will have guidelines, and they're probably online, about what to do in the event of intestacy; and I would expect you'll have blessings to count that you're not in the UK where the state cheerfully helps itself to a large slice of any estate that doesn't have a will attached to it.
In reply to Countrymouse's question, I never asked about a will at the time of my father's death because it never occurred to me. I was very naive at the time, especially about money. Now I am thinking about wills, even planning my own, and it suddenly occurred to me like a bolt out of the blue that I'd never heard a thing about my father having a will.
I feel that asking my mother at this point would make her angry and she would probably not tell me anyway. She realizes or seems to that I am not willing to move in with her and become her untrained, unpaid, overaged nurse and we are going through a passive-aggressive phase.
By the way, Countrymouse, my mother lives in Quebec where they speak Quebec French and the legal system is unlike any other in North America. My mother flatly refuses to speak French though she has lived there for many years, so it makes things complicated. My French is limited though I learn more every day. I don't live in Quebec myself. I would be terribly isolated if I moved in with my mother.
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