Texas
Settling an estate in Longhorn Village
What Texas decides, for somebody living in a planned community. Everything below is the state's own law, quoted from the sections Sahvelo has read, with the source beside it.
What is different about a community like this
A continuing care retirement community, where an entrance fee and a refund provision are often the largest single asset in the estate.
Whatever the community is called, three things decide what an estate may do with a home in one: the age restriction, the association's recorded documents, and any district assessment that arrives on the tax bill. None of the three is state law and all three bind whoever inherits.
Does an estate here go through probate?
What the simplified route is called
Three routes, and Texas names them separately. Probate of the will as a muniment of title, where the court admits the will and appoints nobody. Independent administration, where an executor is appointed but the court then largely steps back. And, for an intestate estate only, a small estate affidavit.Source 1Source 2Source 3
Where the threshold sits
$75,000 for the small estate affidavit, excluding homestead and exempt property. Muniment of title has no ceiling at all — what it requires instead is that the estate owes no unpaid debt other than one secured by a lien on real estate, or that the court finds no need for administration for some other reason.Source 3Source 1
Waiting period before you can use it
30 days from the date of death before a small estate affidavit may be used, and no petition to appoint a personal representative may be pending or already granted. No waiting period applies to muniment of title.Source 4Source 1
Is there an outer deadline?
Yes, and it is the most consequential deadline Texas has. A will may not be admitted to probate after the fourth anniversary of the death unless the applicant proves they were not in default in failing to present it sooner — and after that anniversary a good-faith purchaser buying from the heirs takes good title against a devisee under a will offered later. The contrast matters if you are already past it: a proceeding to declare heirship has no deadline at all and may be brought at any time after the death. What a late family loses is the will route, not the ability to establish who owns the property.Source 5Source 6
Whether the car needs any of this
Where no administration is necessary, the heirs transfer the vehicle on Form Form VTR-262 and nothing else — but every heir must sign before one notary on the same date, or file additional copies. Texas also allows a beneficiary designation on a vehicle title, and it has a feature that runs the other way: a later will does not revoke it. On tax, a car passing from a Texas estate to an heir has carried no motor vehicle tax since 1 September 2025, and none is due even where the vehicle had a lien on it at the death.Source 7Source 8Source 9
The simplified route, and whether it fits
What you file, and where
A small estate affidavit filed with the clerk of the court that has jurisdiction and venue of the estate, sworn by two disinterested witnesses and by every distributee with legal capacity, and then approved by the judge. It is a court filing, not a form handed to a bank.Source 3
The ceiling
$75,000 of estate assets on the date of the affidavit, excluding homestead and exempt property — and the known liabilities, excluding those secured by homestead and exempt property, must be less than the assets. Work out what the exclusion covers before deciding you are over the ceiling, because it is wider than the word “exempt” suggests. Exempt property is a defined list: home furnishings including family heirlooms, provisions, wearing apparel, tools and equipment of a trade, two firearms, athletic and sporting equipment, household pets, and a car for each family member who holds a driver's license — capped in aggregate at $100,000 for a family, measured net of any liens. A house, a car each and the contents can therefore sit almost entirely outside the ceiling.Source 3Source 10
How long you have to wait
30 days from the date of death, and no petition to appoint a personal representative may be pending or already granted.Source 4
Who may use it
The distributees of someone who died intestate. Texas closes this route to a family holding a will in the opening clause of the section — if there is a will, the routes are muniment of title or administration, not this.Source 3Source 1
Does it reach a house?
Only the homestead, and only where the homestead is the only real property in the estate. The affidavit must then be recorded in the deed records of a county where the homestead is located. One other parcel anywhere and the affidavit will not carry the real property at all. What covers the rest is not this chapter. It is either a recorded affidavit of heirship — which is evidence rather than a transfer, and becomes prima facie evidence only after five years on record, and never defeats an omitted heir — or a judicial proceeding to declare heirship, which has no deadline and produces a judgment rather than a presumption.Source 11Source 12Source 6
If you are the one handling it
Whether you need to be appointed, and how
Apply to the probate court for the will to be admitted and letters testamentary issued — or, where the will provides for it or all the distributees agree, an independent administration in which the court largely steps back after the inventory. What independent means is written into the definitions rather than into the appointment: an independent executor is a “personal representative” for the purposes of the code, and the same section says in the next breath that including them there does not subject them to the control of the courts in probate matters, except as expressly provided by law. So the ordinary rules about personal representatives reach you, and the court's supervision of them does not — which is the whole of the difference between the two routes. If the estate owes no unpaid debt other than one secured by a lien on real estate, the will can instead be admitted as a muniment of title and nobody is appointed at all.Source 2Source 1Source 13
What proves you can act, and what it is called here
Letters testamentary from the probate court, or nothing at all. Where the will is admitted as a muniment of title nobody is appointed and the order itself is the authority; where the administration is independent, the letters carry authority the court does not then supervise.Source 2Source 1
What you are personally on the hook for
There is no outer bar in the sense other states use. A claim may be presented at any time before the estate is closed, provided suit on it is not already barred by the general statutes of limitation — so publication discharges a duty and extinguishes nothing. Only one cut-off is yours to trigger: permissive notice to an unsecured creditor bars the claim 121 days after receipt, and the notice has to carry a statement that a claim may be presented by only one of the prescribed methods or the bar does not work. What does not help you, if you are an independent executor — which is most Texas executors — is rejecting a claim or ignoring it. The supervised-administration claim rules do not apply to you, so a claim is not barred because the creditor failed to sue within 90 days of your rejection, nor because you took no action on it at all. Presenting a claim to you does not toll the creditor's limitation period either, which is the protection that actually runs in the background. Publishing, waiting and distributing closes nothing.Source 14Source 15Source 16Source 17
The bank accounts
Whether you can reach the account without a court appointment
Check one thing before any of this, because in Texas it decides the whole question and it is not what people assume: a joint account does NOT pass to the survivor merely because it is joint. Survivorship has to have been agreed in writing and cannot be inferred from joint ownership, so two names on a Texas account prove nothing on their own. Where survivorship was agreed, the money is the survivor's and none of what follows applies. Only with a judge. The Texas small estate affidavit is filed with the clerk of the court that has jurisdiction and venue, and the judge must approve it before it does anything. It is intestate only, from its opening clause — a family holding a will is outside the chapter altogether, and their route is admitting the will as a muniment of title, where no representative is appointed and the order itself is what banks and transfer agents act on.Source 18Source 3Source 1
How much the no-appointment route covers, and what counts toward it
$75,000 of estate assets valued as at the date of the affidavit, excluding homestead and exempt property — so an estate with a house can still qualify. There is a second test that reads past easily and is not a ceiling: the assets, on the same exclusions, must exceed the estate's known liabilities.Source 3
What you hand the bank
The approved affidavit. It is not a form one heir signs: it must be sworn to by two disinterested witnesses and by every distributee who has legal capacity, with a natural guardian or next of kin swearing for a minor or incapacitated distributee. It has to list all known assets and liabilities, name and address every distributee, and set out the family history facts that establish each one's right to receive.Source 3
Whether the bank has to release it, and what protects the bank
Sahvelo has not verified a Texas provision compelling a holder to pay on the affidavit, and does not state one. Two conditions decide whether you can present it at all: 30 days must have elapsed since the death, and no petition for the appointment of a personal representative may be pending or granted. A relative who filed for administration in the first weeks, before anyone understood how small the estate was, has closed this route until that petition is disposed of.Source 4Source 3
What a divorce does to the documents
Does divorce change the documents by itself?
Yes, and the reach is the part people miss. On divorce, annulment or a declaration that the marriage was void, every provision of the will — including every fiduciary appointment — is read as if the former spouse AND each relative of the former spouse who is not also your relative had failed to survive you. A former parent-in-law or a former stepchild named as a beneficiary or as executor goes with the ex-spouse. Unless the will expressly provides otherwise.Source 19
The will, and what has to be handed in
Deadline to hand in the original
On receiving notice of the death. Texas sets no number of days: the person who has custody of the will shall deliver it to the clerk of the court with jurisdiction of the estate, and the duty starts when they learn of the death rather than when someone asks.Source 20
What happens if you are late
Unusually direct. On a sworn written complaint that someone has custody of the will or estate papers, the judge shall have them cited by personal service to show cause. If they neither deliver nor show good cause, the judge may have them arrested and confined until they do — and they are liable to anyone aggrieved for all damages caused by the refusal.Source 20
What made the will valid in the first place
Two witnesses aged at least 14 who subscribed in their own handwriting in the testator's presence — or no witnesses at all, if the will is written wholly in the testator's own hand. A self-proving affidavit, or a will executed and made self-proved at the same time, lets it be admitted without any witness testifying.Source 21Source 22
If there is no will
Spouse, and all the children are the couple's
The community estate passes entirely to the surviving spouse — this is the one arrangement Texas handles the way families expect. The separate property does not follow: the spouse takes a third of the separate personal estate, the children take two thirds, and the spouse gets a life estate in a third of the separate land, with the children owning the remainder from the moment of death.Source 23Source 24
Spouse, and at least one child is not theirs
This is where Texas surprises people. Because one surviving child is not the surviving spouse's, the deceased's undivided one-half interest in the community estate passes to the children rather than to the spouse. The widow keeps her own half and co-owns the rest — the house included — with her stepchildren. The separate property splits as it does in any Texas estate with children. Two things soften that, and both matter more than the arithmetic. Everything either spouse possessed is presumed community property, and proving an asset was separate takes clear and convincing evidence, so the default is the half-and-half answer rather than the one a stepchild may assert. And owning the house is not the same as being able to live in it or sell it: the homestead may not be partitioned for as long as the surviving spouse elects to occupy it, which means the stepchildren can own their share for decades without being able to realize it.Source 23Source 24Source 25Source 26
Spouse, and no children
The spouse takes all the separate personal estate and half the separate land outright. The other half of the land passes by descent — to the deceased's parents, siblings or their descendants. Only where no parent and no sibling or their descendants survive does the spouse take the entire estate. The community estate passes wholly to the spouse.Source 24Source 23
No surviving spouse
Children and their descendants first. If none, equal portions to the mother and father; if only one parent survives, half to that parent and half to the deceased's siblings and their descendants, unless there are no siblings at all. If neither parent survives, the whole estate to siblings and their descendants. Beyond that Texas splits the estate into two halves, one to the paternal kindred and one to the maternal — so a relative on one side does not exclude the other side.Source 27
The death certificates, and how many
Who may obtain a certified copy
The most restrictive answer of any state on this page. Immediate family only, and the department's list is the person named on the record, a child, a parent or guardian, a brother or sister, a grandparent, or a spouse — plus a guardian or legal agent. A grandchild is not on that list. Neither is a niece, a nephew, a stepchild or an in-law. Everyone else must supply legal documentation of a direct interest, such as a court order or an insurance policy naming them.Source 28
What the cheaper version actually is
Not established. Texas restricts the record as a whole rather than publishing a redacted version, and no provision offering a certificate without the cause of death was read. Sahvelo does not assert that no such version exists — ask the department before assuming you can obtain one.Source 29
Cost per certified copy
Not printed by the department on the pages read. It routes the reader to a separate costs and fees list by record type; confirm the current amount there before ordering.Source 29
Worth knowing
The restriction is time-based rather than version-based: the certificate is a closed record for 25 years from the date of death, and identification is required to prove you are a qualified applicant. Settle whether you may order before you apply — the failure mode here is a refused application rather than the wrong document.Source 29Source 28
How fast must the death be registered, and does it hold up the funeral?
The certificate must be filed with the local registrar of the district where the death occurred — or where the body was found, if the place of death is unknown — not later than the tenth day after the death. That is a filing deadline rather than the date copies become available, and how long after filing a family can actually order is not established.Source 30
The safe-deposit box
Who can get the box open?
More permissive than most, with one catch in the verb. The bank may permit an examination with no court order at all by the spouse, a parent, an adult descendant, or the person named as executor in a copy of what appears to be the will — no letters and no affidavit required by the section. But it is the bank's permission to give rather than the family's right to demand, and a bank that declines has broken nothing. Where it declines, a probate judge may order a court representative to examine the box.Source 31Source 32
What may actually be taken out?
Three things and no more: a document appearing to be the will, a burial plot deed or burial instructions, and a life insurance policy on the deceased's life. Money, jewellery, certificates and everything else stay in the box. The court-order route reaches exactly the same three categories, so an order will not get the family the cash either.Source 31Source 32
Where does the will end up?
To the clerk of a probate court in the county where the deceased lived, or to a person named in the document as executor — the institution chooses. Where a judge ordered the examination, the will goes to the clerk of a probate court in the same county as the ordering judge, and the clerk must issue a receipt for it.Source 31Source 32
When can the box actually be emptied?
When someone with authority over the estate appears. Nothing beyond the will, the burial documents and the life policy leaves the box under either route, so the rest waits for letters testamentary or of administration — or for one of the alternatives Texas allows, such as a small estate affidavit or an order admitting the will as a muniment of title.Source 31Source 1
What if nobody is paying the rent?
Not established. Sahvelo has read Texas's death-of-lessee examination provisions but not its provisions on unpaid rent, abandonment or forced entry, so nothing is stated here. Ask the institution rather than assuming the box is safe indefinitely.Source 31
The debts, and how long creditors have
Community property state?
Yes, and the house is the part to get right. Texas is a community property state, and the community estate passes charged with the debts against the community estate. What counts as community is now answerable: everything either spouse possessed is presumed community property, and establishing that something was separate takes clear and convincing evidence — separate being what was owned before the marriage, or received during it by gift, devise or descent. One asset can be both at once, and the ordinary Texas house usually is: character is fixed by inception of title — when the ownership interest arose, not who paid for it afterwards — so a house one spouse bought before the marriage and paid off with married earnings stays separate, and the community's payments become a claim for reimbursement between the estates rather than a share of the ownership. The homestead is treated differently from everything else. Where the decedent left a spouse or a minor child, the homestead is not liable for the estate's debts at all, apart from seven named exceptions — purchase money, taxes, an improvement lien, an owelty of partition, a refinance, a qualifying home equity extension, and a reverse mortgage. So the mortgage survives and the credit cards generally do not reach the house. Which half of the marriage an ordinary unsecured debt attaches to is still a question the corpus does not answer. Property set aside to the family as exempt is reachable only for Class 1 claims — funeral expenses and expenses of last illness — and if the estate proves insolvent on final settlement the surviving spouse and children take absolute title to it. A family that rented, or whose parent owned none of the listed articles, is not outside that protection: where the specific articles are not among the effects the court shall make a reasonable allowance in their place — up to $45,000 in lieu of a homestead and up to $30,000 in lieu of the other exempt property. Those are ceilings on what is reasonable, not entitlements to the figure.Source 23Source 25Source 33Source 34Source 35Source 36
How long creditors have
Open, until you close it — and in the usual kind of Texas estate there is only one way to close it. Texas sets no general claims deadline: a creditor may present a claim at any time before the estate is closed if suit is not already barred by the ordinary statutes of limitation. The one device that shortens that is permissive notice to an unsecured creditor, which bars the claim 121 days after receipt. Watch the trap here, because it is the opposite of what an executor expects: in an independent administration — the form most Texas estates take — the supervised-administration claim rules do not apply, so a claim is not barred merely because the executor rejected it and the creditor did not sue within 90 days, nor because the executor took no action on it at all. Rejecting a claim you dispute, or ignoring it, bars nothing. Both of the devices that do bar a claim — the 121-day notice and the 90-day suit after a rejection — are written in the chapter that governs supervised administrations, which is why an independent executor cannot reach for them and why a creditor's silence proves nothing. Notice to creditors generally is still due within one month of letters, and written notice to known secured creditors within two.Source 14Source 15Source 16Source 17Source 37
Taxes
Whether the state taxes the estate itself
No, and this one is settled rather than merely absent. Texas repealed its inheritance tax outright — the Act was headed “relating to the repeal of the inheritance tax” and repealed Chapter 211 of the Tax Code with effect from 1 September 2015. There is no state estate tax and no state inheritance tax.Source 38
Who the tax is charged to, if anyone
Nobody, at state level. The repeal removed the tax rather than exempting particular relatives, so there is no class of beneficiary who pays and none who is exempt. The federal estate tax is untouched by any of this and still reaches large estates in Texas exactly as it does everywhere else.Source 38
The thing that catches people
Reading “no inheritance tax” as “no tax”. The repeal was of one state tax. The federal estate tax still applies to large estates, and income tax still falls on money withdrawn from an inherited retirement account — a different tax on a different event, and the one that actually reaches ordinary Texas families. Something in the other direction is worth knowing too: since 1 September 2025 a vehicle passing from an estate to an heir carries no Texas motor vehicle tax, and none is due even where the car had a lien on it at the death.Source 38Source 9
What closing out with the state looks like
Not established. Sahvelo has not verified what closing out an estate with the Texas Comptroller involves — whether a fiduciary return is required, and whether any clearance or certificate exists of the kind other states issue. It does not assert that nothing is required. Ask the Comptroller before assuming either way.Source 38
Other Texas communities
The law below is the same for all of them. These pages exist because the questions arrive by place.
Where to go next
- Build a Texas Handbook — the same law as above, ordered as a plan: what matters now, what can wait, and what is waiting on somebody else.
- Ask Sahvelo a question — say what has happened in your own words. The conversation asks where you are when the answer depends on it, and answers from what Sahvelo has verified.
- Every community Sahvelo has identified, including the ones with no page of their own and why.
Sources
Where a source is marked pending re-verification, the page says so wherever the claim appears.
What this page does not tell you
Sahvelo publishes no population figure, acreage, home count, county, association name or fee for Longhorn Village, because it has not read those from a source it can cite. What it will not do is estimate them. For the community's own rules — the age restriction, what an estate may do with a home, what is owed while it sits empty — the documents recorded against the property are the authority, and the association or district holds them.