Houston Estate Planning and Elder Law Attorney Blog

When a married person dies in Texas, the surviving spouse has a set of legal protections that exist no matter what the will says or who inherits the property. These rights let a widow or widower stay in the family home, keep essential personal property, and draw an allowance from the estate for support during the first hard year. They are some of the strongest protections in ...

A small estate affidavit is a court-approved document that lets the heirs of someone who died without a will collect estate assets without opening a full probate administration. In Texas, it is available only when the estate is modest, the assets outweigh the debts, and no real estate other than a homestead is involved. For families who qualify, it can settle an estate in wee...

Ancillary probate is a secondary probate proceeding that takes place in Texas when someone who lived in another state dies owning property here. The estate is administered mainly in the state where the person lived, and Texas handles only the property within its borders. For the executor of an out-of-state estate, it means a second, usually smaller court process in the county...

Closing an estate in Texas is the final stage of probate, when the executor or administrator settles the last debts, distributes what remains to the heirs or beneficiaries, and is formally released from the job. How that happens, and whether a court has to sign off, depends on the type of administration the estate is under. For many families, the real question is simply how t...

An affidavit of heirship is a sworn statement, recorded in the county’s real property records, that identifies who inherited a deceased person’s land when no will was probated. In Texas, families use it most often to clear title to a home or other real estate after a relative dies without a will, so the property can be sold, refinanced, or simply put in the heirs’ names. It i...