Legal succession is the inheriting of an estate—i.e. the property a person leaves behind after they die—in a manner defined by the law, absent any testamentary desires—i.e. a will. For example, intestate succession—i.e. determining who inherits the estate when the decedent dies without a will—is legal succession because the law determines who inherits. In California, for example, Probate Code § 6402 provides that, in intestate succession, any surviving spouse inherits the estate; if there is no surviving spouse, then the decedent’s parents inherit the estate; and so forth.
[Last updated in December of 2020 by the Wex Definitions Team]