If the decedent dies intestate leaving a surviving spouse and leaving issue some of whom are not the issue of the surviving spouse, the surviving spouse shall receive the following share:
 1. One-half in value of all the legal or equitable estates in real property possessed by the decedent at any time during the marriage, which have not been sold on execution or by other judicial sale, and to which the surviving spouse has made no relinquishment of right.

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Terms Used In Iowa Code 633.212

  • Charges: includes costs of administration, funeral expenses, cost of monument, and federal estate taxes. See Iowa Code 633.3
  • Debts: includes liabilities of the decedent which survive, whether arising in contract, tort, or otherwise. See Iowa Code 633.3
  • Decedent: A deceased person.
  • Equitable: Pertaining to civil suits in "equity" rather than in "law." In English legal history, the courts of "law" could order the payment of damages and could afford no other remedy. See damages. A separate court of "equity" could order someone to do something or to cease to do something. See, e.g., injunction. In American jurisprudence, the federal courts have both legal and equitable power, but the distinction is still an important one. For example, a trial by jury is normally available in "law" cases but not in "equity" cases. Source: U.S. Courts
  • Estate: means the real and personal property of either a decedent or a ward, and may also refer to the real and personal property of a trust described in section 633. See Iowa Code 633.3
  • following: when used by way of reference to a chapter or other part of a statute mean the next preceding or next following chapter or other part. See Iowa Code 4.1
  • Intestate: Dying without leaving a will.
  • personal property: include money, goods, chattels, evidences of debt, and things in action. See Iowa Code 4.1
  • Personal property: All property that is not real property.
  • Property: includes both real and personal property. See Iowa Code 633.3
  • Surviving spouse: means the surviving wife or husband, as the case may be. See Iowa Code 633.3
 2. All personal property that, at the time of death, was in the hands of the decedent as the head of a family, exempt from execution.
 3. One-half of all other personal property of the decedent which is not necessary for the payment of debts and charges.
 4. If the property received by the surviving spouse under subsections 1, 2 and 3 of this section is not equal in value to the sum of fifty thousand dollars, then so much additional of any remaining homestead interest and of the remaining real and personal property of the decedent that is subject to payment of debts and charges against the decedent’s estate, after payment of the debts and charges, even to the extent of the whole of the net estate, as necessary to make the amount of fifty thousand dollars.