Situations
There’s no will
When someone dies without a will, Texas law decides who inherits. If you’re being left out, a court can declare who the heirs are and what each one owns.
What happens when there is no will
When someone dies without a will (lawyers say they died “intestate”), the Texas Estates Code decides who inherits. The relative who is handling things doesn’t get to decide, and neither does an agreement among some of the family.
The short version of who inherits:
- No husband or wife: everything goes to the children, and to the children of any child who has died. If there are no children, it goes to the parents, then to brothers and sisters, and then further out the family tree.
- A husband or wife and children: it depends on whether the property was community or separate. Community property goes to the surviving spouse if all of the children are also the spouse’s children. If any child is from another relationship, the deceased’s half of the community property goes to the children. With separate property, the spouse receives a third of the personal property and the use of a third of the land for life, and the children receive the rest.
- A husband or wife but no children: the spouse keeps the community property. Of the separate property, the spouse receives all the personal property and half the land; the other half goes to the parents or brothers and sisters, if there are any.
More detail: Who inherits when there’s no will · Parents, brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews · What a surviving spouse receives
When the family leaves you out
Often the relatives closest to the person handle everything informally, and someone who lived far away, had drifted apart from the family, or was born outside the marriage is simply not mentioned. It can look like this:
- You were told “there’s no will, so everything goes to” one person, and no one has explained why.
- The house has been sold, or someone has moved into it, and no one asked you to sign anything.
- You only learned of the death months later.
- You’ve been told there’s nothing left, but no one will show you what there was.
Any one of these can have an innocent explanation. Families handle things informally all the time. It’s the pattern that matters.
How you claim what is yours
The court process is called a proceeding to declare heirship. It’s filed in the probate court, and the court declares who the heirs are and what share each one owns. Anyone who claims to own part of the estate can start one. It’s also available when there is a will but the will doesn’t cover all of the property.
How heirship proceedings work · How do I claim my inheritance? · Heirship when there is a will · When a will doesn’t cover all the property
Time limits
For someone who died on or after January 1, 2014, there is no deadline to start an heirship proceeding. If the person died before then, older rules may apply. It’s more complicated, but not necessarily too late. If it turns out there is a will, the deadline to contest it is generally two years from the date the will was admitted to probate, not from the date of death.
Not sure whether there’s a will? Once a will is filed for probate it’s a public record. How to get a copy of a will
If you’ve only recently learned who your parent was, see Newly found heirs.
Tell me what happened
Write to me through the contact form: what happened, roughly when, and who is involved. I read these myself. Writing means our first conversation can be about your situation instead of getting me up to speed.