Intestate Succession San Antonio: Two Different Tables, One Common Trap

Dying without a will in Texas does not mean the surviving spouse takes everything. Sometimes it means exactly that. Sometimes the opposite. Intestate succession San Antonio outcomes turn on a question most families never think to ask. Was the property community or separate?

Texas intestate succession runs on two tables, not one. That fork is why the result is so hard to predict from outside. Community property follows § 201.003. Separate property follows § 201.002. The tables do not match anywhere. And the trap sits in the first one, where it has a name: the child from an earlier relationship.

Table one: the community estate and the blended family

Section 201.003 governs the community estate when a spouse survives. That estate passes entirely to the surviving spouse in two situations. First, when no child or other descendant of the deceased spouse survives. Second, when every surviving child and descendant of the deceased spouse is also the surviving spouse’s.

Now the trap. Subsection (c) applies when the deceased spouse leaves a child or descendant who is not also the surviving spouse’s. Then the deceased spouse’s undivided one-half interest in the community estate passes to those children or descendants. It does not pass to the spouse. They take under the per capita with representation rules of § 201.101.

Read that against a house the couple bought during the marriage. The surviving spouse keeps her own half. The decedent’s half goes to his children from the prior marriage. She now co-owns her home with her stepchildren. Most San Antonio no will inheritance questions reduce to that.

Table two: separate property, where intestate succession San Antonio cases go wrong

The separate-property fractions are the most commonly misstated numbers in this area, so take them one at a time. Section 201.002(b) applies when the decedent leaves a child or a child’s descendant. The surviving spouse takes one-third of the personal estate. Two-thirds of the personal estate descends to the children and the descendants of children. And the surviving spouse takes a life estate in one-third of the land, with the remainder descending to those same children.

Section 201.002(c) covers the childless decedent, and the numbers change completely. The surviving spouse takes all of the personal estate. The spouse also takes one-half of the land without a remainder to any person. And the other half of the land passes under the rules of descent and distribution.

Then subsection (d) closes the loop. If that childless decedent leaves no surviving parent and no surviving sibling or sibling’s descendant, the surviving spouse takes the entire estate.

What a life estate in one-third of the land does to a house

The life-estate fraction confuses people, because it is not an ownership share in the ordinary sense. A life estate gives the surviving spouse the use of that one-third for her lifetime. The remainder belongs to the decedent’s children from the start, and becomes possessory when she dies.

So she cannot sell that one-third outright. She holds it while she lives, and the children hold what follows. Add the two-thirds they already took outright. A separate-property house ends up split among people who may disagree about selling, and that drives more intestate succession San Antonio disputes than the fractions do.

Further out: the moiety rule

When no spouse survives, § 201.001 runs the table in order. The estate passes to the decedent’s children and their descendants. If none survive, it goes in equal portions to the father and mother. If only one parent survives, the estate splits in two: half to that parent, half to the siblings and their descendants. Where no sibling line exists, that parent takes it all. If neither parent survives, the siblings take everything.

Past that point the statute does something unusual, though few intestate succession San Antonio matters travel this far. Under § 201.001(f), the estate divides into two moieties: one to the paternal kindred, one to the maternal kindred. Subsections (g) and (h) walk each half up through the grandparents and their descendants, “and so on without end.”

The filters every intestate succession San Antonio claim runs through

Before either table applies, several sections decide who counts as an heir.

• The 120-hour rule. Section 201.056 gives no right of inheritance to anyone who fails to survive the intestate by 120 hours. A child in gestation at the death qualifies. The statute presumes gestation when the child is born before the 301st day after the death.
• Adopted children. Under § 201.054, an adopted child counts as the adoptive parents’ child and inherits from and through them. He also still inherits from and through his natural parents. But those natural parents and their kindred may not inherit from him.
• Children born outside marriage. Section 201.052 treats a child as a biological father’s child under the Family Code presumptions, a court decree, an adoption, or a signed acknowledgment of paternity. Failing those, a person may petition the probate court, and subsection (d) requires clear and convincing evidence.
• The parent who abandoned a child. Section 201.062 lets a probate court bar a parent from inheriting from a child who died under 18. Nothing about it is automatic. The court must find by clear and convincing evidence that the parent voluntarily abandoned and failed to support the child for three years before the death, or that another listed ground applies. That parent is then treated as having predeceased the child.

Conviction and forfeiture: what the Estates Code actually says

Texas has no general statutory forfeiture of a decedent’s estate on conviction, and the reason is constitutional. Article I, § 21 of the Texas Constitution provides that no conviction shall work corruption of blood or forfeiture of estate. Section 201.058(a) tracks that language.

The Estates Code reaches one narrow situation. Section 201.058(b) covers a life insurance beneficiary convicted and sentenced as a principal or accomplice in wilfully bringing about the insured’s death. Those proceeds go where the Insurance Code directs.

On the estate side, Texas courts have applied an equitable constructive trust to prevent unjust enrichment. That remedy rests on court decisions, not on a forfeiture statute.

Proving the heirs: the Chapter 202 determination of heirship

Knowing the table is not the same as proving who fills it, and Chapter 202 of the Estates Code exists for that. Section 202.002 authorizes an heirship proceeding when a person dies intestate owning Texas property and no administration has occurred here. A party may file at any time after the death (§ 202.0025).

Section 202.004 names who may start one, and the list includes any person claiming to be a creditor or an owner of part of the estate.

Two features shape the hearing. First, § 202.009(a) says the court shall appoint an attorney ad litem for heirs whose names or locations are unknown. That is narrower than it sounds: not all heirs, and not the applicant. Second, § 202.151(b) wants testimony on heirs and family history from two disinterested and credible witnesses in open court. Other listed methods work too, and subsection (c) allows one witness after a diligent search.

The judgment states the heirs and their respective shares (§ 202.201). File it with the county clerk where the real property sits, record it in the deed records, and it becomes constructive notice (§ 202.206). Most intestate succession San Antonio estates with murky family history start right here.

What comes off the top before intestate succession San Antonio math begins

Several protections run ahead of the tables, and they can matter more than the fractions. The homestead descends like other real property under § 102.003. But § 102.004 shields it from estate debts when a spouse or minor child survives. Purchase money, taxes, improvement liens, owelty, refinances, home-equity extensions, and reverse mortgages are the exceptions. Section 102.005 then blocks partition while the surviving spouse elects to occupy the place as a homestead.

Section 353.051 directs the court to set aside the homestead and the exempt property described by Property Code § 42.002(a). It goes to the surviving spouse, the minor children, unmarried adult children still at home, and each incapacitated adult child.

Section 353.101 adds a family allowance for the surviving spouse, minor children, and adult incapacitated children. Section 353.102(a) measures it for one year from the death, in a lump sum or installments. But the court may not award one to a spouse with adequate separate property, or to children with adequate property of their own.

The bottom line

The statute is precise, and that precision is what surprises families. Chapter 201 of the Texas Estates Code never asks what the decedent would have wanted. A blended family with a paid-off house bought during the marriage will not pass it to the spouse alone. Nobody learns that until someone tries to sell. So the fight is rarely about what the law means. The tables are clear enough. It is a fight about characterization, about who the heirs are, and about a house with four owners who never chose one another. A will replaces both tables, and nothing else really does.

Keep reading: Intestate Succession Arizona: Who Inherits When There’s No Will · Arizona Probate Process: How Long It Actually Takes and What Triggers It

---

This article explains how Texas law distributes property when someone dies without a will and is general information, not legal advice. How the rules apply turns on how each asset was characterized during life and on who survives, both of which require proof in a particular estate.