Who Has Power of Attorney After Death With No Will in Georgia?

Nobody has power of attorney after death with no will in Georgia. A power of attorney ends automatically the instant the principal dies, so the agent loses all authority to sign, pay, transfer, or decide anything on the deceased person’s behalf. What replaces that authority is a court-appointed estate administrator, and someone — often the former agent, often the surviving spouse — has to petition the probate court to be named to that role.

Why the Power of Attorney Ended at Death

Georgia law is explicit: death is the first listed ground for termination of a power of attorney, and there are no exceptions.¹ This includes durable powers of attorney. A durable POA is designed to survive the principal’s incapacity, not their death. The two are not the same event, and the statute treats them very differently.

In practice, this means banks will reject transactions attempted under the POA once they learn the account holder has died. Title companies will not accept a deed signed by a former agent. Attempting to use a POA after death can expose you to liability for fraud or abuse of the power. If you held POA for the deceased, that chapter is closed. The next step is probate court.

Who Can Legally Act Now

When a Georgia resident dies without a will, the probate court appoints an administrator to handle the estate. The administrator does the same work a named executor would do, but the court — not the deceased — chooses who it will be.²

If all the heirs agree on a person, the court will usually honor that choice. If they can’t agree, the court follows a statutory preference order:

The surviving spouse, unless a divorce or separate maintenance action was pending when the death occurred.
One or more of the heirs, or a person selected by a majority in interest of the heirs.
Any other eligible person the court finds suitable.
A creditor of the estate.
The county administrator.

Being the former POA agent does not put you on this list. It also does not take you off it. If you qualify as a spouse, heir, or other eligible person, you can petition — but you’ll apply on that basis, not on anything the old POA document said.

Letters of Administration

Once appointed, you receive Letters of Administration from the probate court. These are the credentials every bank, title company, insurer, and government agency will ask for before releasing assets or recognizing your authority. Without them, you have no legal standing to act for the estate, no matter how close you were to the deceased or how clearly the family agrees on your role.

What the Administrator Must Do

The administrator takes the estate through its full wind-down: locating and inventorying assets (real estate, bank accounts, vehicles, personal property), notifying creditors, paying valid debts and taxes in the order the law requires, and distributing whatever is left to the people the intestacy statute names as heirs.

This role carries a fiduciary duty. The administrator must act in the best interest of the estate and its heirs, keep estate funds strictly separate from personal funds, and avoid favoring one heir over another. Mishandling assets, paying the wrong creditor first, or using estate money for personal expenses can mean personal financial liability and removal by the court.

Year’s Support Comes First

If you are a surviving spouse or the guardian of a minor child of the deceased, there is a filing you should know about before creditors are paid and before heirs receive anything. It’s called year’s support, and it sits at the very top of Georgia’s claim priority — ahead of funeral costs, administration expenses, medical bills, and taxes.³

Year’s support is an award of estate property set aside to provide for the surviving spouse and minor children for one year after the death. The petition is filed in probate court and must be filed within 24 months of the date of death.⁴ The petitioner identifies the specific property they want set aside — real estate, bank accounts, household furnishings. The court publishes notice. If no one objects, the court awards what was requested. If someone objects, there’s a hearing.

For a spouse whose income depended on the deceased, this can preserve the home and essential accounts from being drained by creditors. If it applies to you, treat it as one of the first things you file, not something you get to later.

Who Inherits When There’s No Will

Georgia Code Section 53-2-1 controls who receives the estate, and the shares depend entirely on which relatives survive.⁵

Spouse and children both survive: the estate is divided equally among the spouse and the children, but the spouse’s share is guaranteed to be at least one-third. A spouse with four children takes one-third rather than one-fifth.
Spouse and no children: the spouse inherits everything.
Children and no spouse: the children share equally. If a child died before the deceased but left children of their own, those grandchildren take the deceased child’s share.
No spouse or children: the parents inherit equally.
No spouse, children, or parents: siblings inherit equally, with a deceased sibling’s share passing to that sibling’s children.
Beyond that, the statute keeps moving outward to grandparents, aunts and uncles, and more distant relatives.

One boundary catches people repeatedly: Georgia abolished common law marriage effective January 1, 1997. A long-term unmarried partner is not a spouse under this statute and inherits nothing by intestacy, no matter how many years you lived together. Common law marriages validly formed in Georgia before that 1997 date are still recognized, but nothing created after is.

Assets That Skip the Probate Estate

Not everything the deceased owned flows through the administrator. Several categories pass directly to a named beneficiary or surviving co-owner and do not follow the intestacy rules:

Life insurance proceeds payable to a named beneficiary.
Retirement accounts such as 401(k)s and IRAs, which go to the beneficiary on file with the plan administrator.
Jointly owned property with survivorship rights, including real estate held as joint tenants and joint bank accounts.
Payable-on-death (POD) bank accounts and certificates of deposit.
Transfer-on-death (TOD) brokerage accounts and securities.
Assets already placed in a living trust during the deceased’s lifetime.

If a beneficiary was never named, or the named beneficiary died first with no contingent beneficiary, the asset can fall back into the probate estate and get distributed under the intestacy formula above. When you’re taking inventory, check each account’s beneficiary designation directly with the institution rather than assuming.