Can a Kentucky Spouse Claim Accounts Left to the Children?

Often, yes, at least in part. Kentucky gives a surviving spouse an absolute one-half share of the deceased spouse's surplus personal property, known as the dower share, and a 2026 law now says that accounts paid out by beneficiary, transfer-on-death, or payable-on-death designation, including retirement accounts, count toward it. Life insurance death benefits do not. If there is a will, the spouse generally must renounce it first. On October 9, 2026, a Kentucky appeals court reached a similar result for an earlier death under the old law.

What is dower in Kentucky today?

Dower is the share of a deceased spouse's property that Kentucky law reserves for the surviving spouse, and it applies to widows and widowers alike. The statute, KRS 392.020, says any reference in Kentucky law to "dower" or "curtesy" (the older term for a husband's version) means the interest the statute creates. That interest has two parts. The survivor gets a life estate in one-third of certain real estate the other spouse owned during the marriage but did not own at death, unless that right was barred, forfeited, or relinquished. The survivor also gets "an absolute estate in one-half (1/2) of the surplus personalty left by the decedent."

"Personalty" means personal property, such as bank accounts, investments, and vehicles, as opposed to land. "Surplus" means what remains after debts, funeral expenses, charges of administration, and widows' exemptions, according to a Kentucky Supreme Court definition quoted in the case discussed below. The statute's first subsection speaks of a spouse who dies without a will, and it says the dower share comes in addition to the spouse's share under the intestacy statute, KRS 391.010 (see our guide to dying without a will).

Senate Bill 50, which became 2026 Ky. Acts ch. 134, rewrote both statutes. Under the new intestacy text, a surviving spouse takes the entire estate if the decedent left no descendants, or if every descendant of the decedent is also the spouse's and the spouse has no other descendants. The spouse takes one-half if the decedent left a descendant who is not the spouse's. The spouse also takes one-half if all of the decedent's descendants are the spouse's too, but the spouse has a descendant who is not the decedent's.

Which accounts can a surviving spouse reach under the 2026 law?

The amended KRS 392.020 lists kinds of property that count as surplus personalty. The statute says the term includes "personal property owned by the decedent at death" that falls into one of these groups:

• property payable under a beneficiary designation, a transfer-on-death designation, or a payable-on-death designation, including retirement accounts whether or not they are called individual retirement accounts
• property jointly owned with a right of survivorship to another person

The statute separately includes property held by or payable to a trust over which the decedent kept a power of revocation at death, and property over which the decedent held a general power of appointment at death. It also includes property the decedent transferred to a person or trust less than two years before death.

So an IRA or brokerage account that names only the children, a bank account with a payable-on-death designation, and a joint account with survivorship rights that the decedent shared with a child all fall within the statute's text. These accounts normally skip probate, but the statute counts them anyway when it measures the spouse's one-half share.

What does the dower share leave out?

Two categories are excluded. The first is life insurance. The statute says surplus personalty "shall not include the death benefit payable on any life insurance policy insuring the life of the decedent." Insurance proceeds paid to the surviving spouse are credited against the spouse's share, and proceeds paid to a trust that benefits the spouse are credited in an amount set under a separate subsection that uses 26 U.S.C. sec. 7520.

The second is older transfers, such as gifts. Property the decedent transferred to a person or trust two or more years before death is not surplus personalty. That cutoff does not apply to a transfer to a trust for the benefit of the surviving spouse, the decedent, or a qualified charitable organization, so the passage of two years does not by itself remove those transfers. Property held at death by a trust the decedent created, with the surviving spouse as a beneficiary, is deemed surplus personalty or surplus real estate, and it is also credited against the spouse's share in an amount computed under 26 U.S.C. sec. 7520.

The share is also reduced by what the spouse already received. The statute credits the spouse's share with any beneficiary, transfer-on-death, payable-on-death, or survivorship property the spouse receives at the decedent's death, less the amount paid for the decedent's funeral and burial expenses as shown by a receipt, a contract, or another written document. The math depends on the specific estate.

Does the new law apply to a death before July 15, 2026?

The sources reviewed for this article do not settle that. The current statute page lists its effective date as July 15, 2026, and Kentucky Attorney General Opinion OAG 26-03 treats July 15, 2026 as the effective date for 2026 regular session acts that have no emergency clause or delayed effective date. This article does not say the new language reaches earlier deaths, and it does not say it excludes them.

What can be said is how the Court of Appeals handled an earlier death. In the case described below, the court applied the version of KRS 392.020 "in effect at the time of Bill's death," meaning the pre-2026 text. Under that version, the court held that transfer-on-death accounts the husband owned at death were part of his surplus personalty, and it also upheld a finding of "fraud on the dower." For a death on or after July 15, 2026, the new text applies on its face.

What happened in Perrine v. Perrine?

In Perrine v. Perrine, No. 2025-CA-1444-MR, the Kentucky Court of Appeals affirmed a judgment for a widow against her late husband's adult children. The opinion was rendered October 9, 2026, is marked "to be published," and all three judges agreed. The case came up from the Fayette Circuit Court.

The couple married in October 2015 after reconnecting years earlier. Each had been married before, and the opinion says they did not discuss their finances or sign a prenuptial or postnuptial agreement. The husband died without a will on February 6, 2024. He owned no real property, and his tangible personal property was valued at $18,826. He also had an IRA and a separate investment account, with a combined value of $2,331,762.92, and both carried transfer-on-death designations in favor of his children, not his wife. A child acting under a power of attorney had moved money from an older account into the investment account and signed a new beneficiary form. A week before the death, seven checks of $18,000 each, $126,000 in all, were issued from that account to children and grandchildren.

The husband also owned two paid-up whole-life policies worth two million dollars together, with his children as the only beneficiaries. The widow did not claim those. The court cited a 2016 Kentucky Supreme Court decision, Bays v. Kiphart, for the point that a spouse's statutory interest "could never attach to those proceeds."

Why did the court say the children could not keep the accounts?

The court gave two main reasons. First, it held the accounts still belonged to the husband when he died. He could spend from them, change the investments, and revoke or change the beneficiaries at will. The children held "no more than a mere expectancy interest," and a Kentucky statute on transfer-on-death registration, KRS 292.6506, says a designation "has no effect on ownership until the owner's death." That put the accounts inside the surplus personalty that the widow's dower share reaches.

Second, the court applied a presumption of fraud on the dower. Citing an earlier Court of Appeals case, Keith v. Cross (2021), and older Kentucky high court decisions, it said an intentional decision to leave a spouse off the beneficiary designations after she agreed to marry would generally trigger a presumption that the decision amounted to fraud on her share. The circuit court had found that the designations deprived her of 99 percent of the value of his personalty. The children argued that the original designations predated the engagement, but the court answered that nothing was transferred before she agreed to marry him, because the accounts "transferred only upon his death." It also noted that nothing showed she had consented, that nothing showed any beneficiary depended on him for support, and that the power of attorney renewed the exclusion shortly before the death. The children failed to rebut the presumption.

The court held the widow was entitled to receive from the children one-half of the value of the transfer-on-death accounts, plus one-half of the value of the gifts. The court acknowledged the wish to protect children of an earlier marriage but pointed to Kentucky's long-held view that a husband has a moral obligation to provide for his wife after his death, which it called "now a statutory requirement." A party may still ask the Kentucky Supreme Court to review the ruling, and this article does not predict what would happen. Perrine also did not decide how the 2026 statute works.

What if the deceased spouse left a will?

A different statute then comes into play. Under KRS 392.080, a surviving spouse whose spouse died with a will may give up what the will provides and take the share under KRS 392.020 "as if no will had been made." The statute sets a strict procedure. The spouse acknowledges a written relinquishment before an officer authorized to administer oaths, who adds a certificate, and both papers must be filed with the clerk of the court that admitted the will to probate and with the county clerk of that county, within six months after the will is admitted to probate. If someone files an action contesting the will within those six months, the deadline moves to six months after that action is resolved. A district court may also extend the period by up to six more months, but only if the spouse applies within the first six months.

One open question deserves plain mention. KRS 392.080 still says the spouse's share of real estate held at death is "only one-third (1/3)." The amended KRS 392.020 no longer gives a fee share in real estate held at death. How courts will read the two statutes together after SB 50 is an open question that the sources reviewed for this article do not answer, and this article does not try to resolve it.

Perrine did not involve a will, so it did not address the renunciation route. The statute also says a spouse can receive both a bequest and the dower share if the testator's intent is "plainly expressed in the will or necessarily inferable from the will."

What should a surviving spouse do first?

These steps are general. Deadlines and facts differ from estate to estate.

1. Collect the account statements and beneficiary forms for every account the spouse owned, including retirement accounts, brokerage accounts, bank accounts, and any account titled jointly with someone else. Ask each institution for the value at the date of death.
2. Do not sign a waiver, release, or disclaimer until you understand what you are giving up. Papers from an estate lawyer or a financial institution may ask for exactly that.
3. Find out whether there is a will. If one has been admitted to probate, mark the six-month renunciation deadline described above, and check whether anyone has contested the will.
4. Know that the amended statute lets a surviving spouse bring an action against anyone who received property that is part of the surplus personalty or surplus real estate, as needed to satisfy the dower claim. The widow in Perrine sued after the children's lawyer wrote to deny she had any claim.
5. Talk to a Kentucky probate lawyer, a legal aid office, or a court self-help center early, because the date of death, any transfers, and any marital agreement all change the analysis.

Adult children named as beneficiaries have their own concerns. They should avoid spending money a stepparent may claim, get their own legal advice, and keep in mind that life insurance is outside the share and that property the spouse already received is credited against it. The children in Perrine were ordered to pay part of what they had received, including part of the gifts.

Can a prenuptial agreement or planning change the result?

Generally, a valid prenuptial or postnuptial agreement, or a surviving spouse's own written waiver, can affect dower rights. The Perrine opinion noted that the couple had no such agreement, that the widow said she had not consented or waived her dower rights, and that nothing indicated she consented. This article does not cite a particular statute for waivers, and whether one is valid depends on its wording and the facts.

For blended families, the practical lesson is that naming only your children on an account does not by itself keep the account out of reach of a spouse in Kentucky. Our guide to estate planning for blended families covers common ways families plan around this, and the page on whether you can disinherit a spouse or child explains the general limits. The who inherits without a will tool shows the default order. This article covers Kentucky only. Other states use different systems, such as elective shares, and the answer there can differ.

This is general information about Kentucky law, not legal advice for your situation.