In the article Spouses automatically inherit under new law it was mentioned that New South Whales Australia changed their intestate succession laws. While it will not impact my clients the article was of interest to compare how things are there versus Florida and the US and the reason for acting.
The state attorney General John Hatzistergos said "When people die without leaving a will, there is the potential for legal dispute as relatives fight over the estate". In Florida and most US states while there is typically the chance for a dispute whether or not there is a will or trust it cannot be solely because there was no will in the sense that the intestate succession law is clear it would either go one half to the children and one half to the spouse or if they were the children of both parents the first $60,000 goes to the spouse and then half and half. I do not see where it would cut down any disputes as reasons to dispute of lack of capacity, or undue influence, fraud or issues that may be asserted in a will are no present and with the change they proposed it would still not change the most likely disputed situations when there are spouses who are not the surving childrens parents.
It is interesting to note however that they had a poll which showed that 75% of the time people who had a first marriage situation wanted there property to go to the spouse then to the children. When estate tax is not an issue I have found that to be typically the case as well that the parent wants it to go first to the spouse then to her kids and which is why Florida makes the distinction in the amount that the spouse gets depending on whether there are kids from someone other than the surviving spouse or not.
Likewise their poll showed just 30% percent want all to spouse if there are kids from a prior marriage. Those numbers sound consistent with numbers I have dealt with practicing in both Florida and Illinois.
It is a good idea to have the Intestate succession laws reflect the likely intent of the testator.
An additional issue mentioned in the article was that 45% of people in the survey did not have wills. For clients that I deal with as an estate planning attorney will all have documents in place and almost always avoid probate although from clients in general throughout the US it would be interesting to hear the latest stats the last I had read the ABA at one point had done a survey which showed nationally well above half of adults did not have a will.