Under Nevada’s next of kin law, when a person dies without a will the estate passes first to the surviving spouse and children, then to parents, then to siblings and their descendants, and only to more distant relatives if none of those closer family members survive. The rules live in NRS Chapter 134, and they govern only assets that go through probate — a category that often turns out to be smaller than families expect.
What the Surviving Spouse Receives
Nevada is a community property state. Most assets acquired during the marriage already belong equally to both spouses, so the survivor keeps their own half automatically. The deceased spouse’s half of the community property also passes to the surviving spouse in intestacy, meaning the survivor ends up with all of it.1Nevada Legislature. Nevada Revised Statutes 123.250 – Ownership of Survivor Upon Death of Spouse; Disposal by Will of Decedent
Separate property is different. Assets the deceased owned before marriage, or received during marriage by gift or inheritance, are divided according to who else survives:
- One child, or descendants of one deceased child: the spouse takes half, the child or the child’s descendants take the other half.
- Two or more children: the spouse takes one-third, and the remaining two-thirds is divided equally among the children. Descendants of a deceased child step into that child’s share by right of representation.2Nevada Legislature. Nevada Revised Statutes 134.040 – Surviving Spouse and Issue
- No children, both parents alive: the spouse takes half, and each parent takes a quarter.
- No children, one parent alive: the spouse takes half, the surviving parent takes the other half.3Nevada Legislature. Nevada Revised Statutes 134.050 – Surviving Spouse and No Issue; No Surviving Spouse or Issue but Parent
- No children and no parents: the entire separate estate goes to the spouse.
The jump from one child to two children matters. A surviving spouse whose deceased partner left three children — biological or adopted, from that marriage or a prior one — receives only one-third of the separate property, not half.
What Children and Their Descendants Receive
If there is no surviving spouse, the children take everything in equal shares. One child takes it all; multiple children split it evenly.4Nevada Legislature. Nevada Revised Statutes Chapter 134 – Succession A child who died before the parent, but who left descendants, doesn’t cause those descendants to lose out: grandchildren inherit their deceased parent’s share through right of representation.
Adopted children inherit exactly as biological children do, with full rights in the adoptive family’s estate.5Nevada Legislature. Nevada Revised Statutes 127.160 – Rights and Duties of Adopted Child and Adoptive Parents Estrangement doesn’t matter. A child who had no contact with the deceased parent for decades has the same legal share as one who stayed close; Nevada intestacy law looks only at the legal relationship.
When There Is No Spouse or Children
The estate moves down the family line until someone qualifies:
- Parents split the estate equally. If only one parent survives, that parent takes everything.3Nevada Legislature. Nevada Revised Statutes 134.050 – Surviving Spouse and No Issue; No Surviving Spouse or Issue but Parent
- Siblings inherit in equal shares. A predeceased sibling’s children (the decedent’s nieces and nephews) step into their parent’s share.
- Grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins may inherit if no closer family survives.6Justia. Nevada Revised Statutes Chapter 134 – Succession
Half-blood relatives — half-siblings, for instance — generally inherit equally with full-blood relatives. One narrow exception: when the property came to the deceased through a specific ancestor and the half-blood relative is not from that ancestor’s bloodline, they can be excluded from that portion.4Nevada Legislature. Nevada Revised Statutes Chapter 134 – Succession
If no relatives can be located at all, the estate escheats to the state for educational purposes.7Nevada Legislature. Nevada Revised Statutes 134.120 – Escheat
Who the Law Does Not Treat as Next of Kin
Unmarried partners have no inheritance rights under Nevada intestacy law, regardless of how long they lived with the deceased or how the relationship was regarded socially. The same is true of close friends and stepchildren who were never adopted.
Nevada also stopped recognizing common-law marriages formed within the state in 1943.8Nevada Legislature. Nevada Revised Statutes 122.010 – What Constitutes Marriage; No Common-Law Marriages After March 29, 1943 A surviving partner who lived with the deceased for decades has no spousal inheritance rights unless they can prove a valid common-law marriage was established in a state that recognizes them. That is a narrow and heavily litigated path.
Two other bars can knock a would-be heir out of the line. Under Nevada’s slayer statute, anyone who kills the decedent is treated as though they predeceased the victim, and their share passes to whoever is next in line.9Nevada Legislature. Nevada Revised Statutes 41B.200 – General Rule; Killer Cannot Profit or Benefit From Wrong And when two people who would inherit from each other die in the same event and the order of death cannot be determined, each person’s property is distributed as if they survived the other; jointly held property is split in half and each half is passed through the respective estate.10Justia. Nevada Revised Statutes Chapter 135 – Simultaneous Death (Uniform Act)
The Assets Intestacy Does Not Touch
This is the single most misunderstood piece of the picture. NRS 134 only controls assets that pass through probate. Many of the most valuable things a person owns skip probate entirely, and for those, the spouse-child-parent hierarchy is irrelevant.
Common assets that bypass intestacy:
- Life insurance proceeds and retirement accounts pass directly to whoever is named as beneficiary, regardless of family relationships.
- Real estate or bank accounts held in joint tenancy with right of survivorship pass automatically to the surviving joint tenant.
- Community property titled with an express right of survivorship transfers directly to the surviving spouse. The deed or title document must expressly declare the arrangement.11Nevada Legislature. Nevada Revised Statutes 111.064 – Tenancy in Common; Community Property With Right of Survivorship
- A recorded transfer-on-death deed sends real property to the named beneficiary; the beneficiary must publish a notice to creditors after the owner dies and wait 90 days for claims before distributing or selling the property.12Nevada Legislature. Nevada Revised Statutes 111.689 – Enforcement of Liabilities Against Property Transferred Pursuant to Deed Upon Death
- Payable-on-death bank accounts go to the named beneficiary directly from the bank.
- Assets held in a revocable living trust are distributed according to the trust document.
A common scenario: a house held in joint tenancy with a spouse, a retirement account naming an adult child as beneficiary, and a small checking account in the deceased’s sole name. Only the checking account is subject to intestacy. The rest passes by its own rules, no matter what NRS 134 says about who “should” have inherited.
Proving You Are the Next of Kin
The probate court will not distribute anything until it is satisfied that the people claiming to inherit actually are who they say they are. A birth certificate listing the deceased as a parent is the cleanest proof of a child’s right. Marriage licenses confirm a surviving spouse’s standing, and certified adoption records establish an adopted child’s rights.5Nevada Legislature. Nevada Revised Statutes 127.160 – Rights and Duties of Adopted Child and Adoptive Parents
When original documents are unavailable, courts can accept sworn affidavits from people with personal knowledge of the family, census records, baptismal certificates, or probate records from other jurisdictions. These carry less weight than vital records but can fill gaps.
Disputed paternity is a special case. Nevada allows genetic testing in civil paternity actions, and results showing a 99 percent or higher probability of parentage create a conclusive presumption of fatherhood.13Nevada Legislature. Nevada Revised Statutes Chapter 126 – Parentage When the alleged father is deceased, courts have relied on DNA testing of his parents as strong evidence of the biological relationship.
When Full Probate Isn’t Necessary
Not every intestate estate needs to march through a full probate case. Nevada offers simplified paths based on size, and the thresholds increased in October 2025 under SB 404.14Nevada Legislature. SB 404 Overview
- Estates of $150,000 or less (after liens and encumbrances) can be set aside by court order without formal probate. When a surviving spouse or minor children exist, the court must set the estate aside for their benefit. Nothing can be filed until at least 30 days after the death.15Nevada Legislature. Nevada Revised Statutes 146.070 – Estates Not Exceeding Threshold: Procedure to Set Aside Estate
- Estates of $500,000 or less (after encumbrances) qualify for summary administration, a condensed probate with lighter documentation.14Nevada Legislature. SB 404 Overview
- Estates under $25,000 that contain no real property can be claimed by affidavit, with no court proceeding at all. A separate $150,000 threshold applies to a surviving spouse claiming an estate that contains no real property.
These thresholds count only probatable assets — those titled solely in the deceased person’s name with no beneficiary, joint owner, or trust. A $400,000 house held in joint tenancy plus a $20,000 account in the decedent’s name alone leaves only $20,000 in probatable assets, well within the affidavit range.
Whichever path applies, the answer to who inherits still comes from the same place: the order set out in NRS Chapter 134, with the surviving spouse and children first, then out along the family tree until it finds someone.