Without a will in the States, husband and son must leave (9)
I believe the answer is:
intestate
'without a will' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'in the states husband and son must leave' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'in' is within the answer.
'the' could be 't' (the is pronounced as a 't' sound in some dialects) and 't' is found in the answer.
'son' could be 's' and 's' is present in the answer.
This may be the basis of clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for intestate that I've seen before include "Lacking a will" , "Passing on without leaving a will" , "dead without having made a will" , "Not having planned to leave" , "One without will" .)