Intestate Succession Austin: How Texas Decides Who the Heirs Are

Intestate succession in Austin means a court must declare who the heirs are when someone dies without a will; until then, a house can’t sell and a bank account can’t close. Texas law sets a fixed order of heirs, and a small estate affidavit is available after 30 days if non-exempt assets don’t exceed $75,000 and a judge approves it. Travis County’s two probate courts hear these cases. Here’s how the process works.

The proceeding starts with a court filing, not a family meeting. Title companies and banks want a court’s answer, not the family’s word. A house cannot sell until a judge signs an order, and a bank account cannot close either.

Most Austin no will inheritance questions start the same way. Who counts as an heir? Who has the authority to say so? Texas answers the first question with statutory tables. It answers the second with a court proceeding most families never expect to need.

The two tables behind intestate succession Austin cases

Texas intestate succession splits into two tracks. Which track applies depends on one fact: does a spouse survive? If no spouse survives, § 201.001 controls. It sends the estate to children first, then parents, then siblings, in a fixed order. If none of that line survives, the estate splits into two moieties instead. One half goes to paternal kin, the other to maternal kin, under § 201.001(f)-(h).

A surviving spouse changes everything, and Texas then splits the analysis by property type. Separate property follows § 201.002. A spouse with surviving children gets one-third of the personal property. The spouse also gets a life estate in one-third of the land. The children split what’s left.

Community property is different, and this is where Austin families often get it wrong. The governing section is § 201.003, not § 201.002. A surviving spouse keeps the whole community estate in one case only. That’s when every surviving child is also that spouse’s own child. Otherwise, the deceased spouse’s half of the community estate passes to the children instead.

Half-siblings complicate the math further. Section 201.057 treats half-blood kin differently from whole-blood kin. A half-blood relative generally inherits less than a whole-blood relative in the same line.

Who can ask a court to declare heirship

The list of who may start an heirship case is longer than most people expect. Creditors are on it. Under § 202.004, the estate’s personal representative can file. So can a creditor, or anyone claiming an ownership interest in the estate. A guardian of the decedent’s estate can file too, but only in the court that already handled the guardianship. A party seeking an independent administrator can file as well. So can the trustee of a trust holding assets for the decedent.

That breadth matters in practice. A bank owed money does not have to wait on the family. Neither does a business partner with a claim against the estate. Families often assume only a spouse or child can start the case. They are usually surprised by who else has standing.

What an intestate succession Austin application has to prove

Filing is not just a form. Section 202.005 requires a sworn application covering the whole family tree. Every heir has to be named, with address, relationship, and adult-or-minor status. Every marriage the decedent ever had gets listed too, with dates and how each one ended.

The application also has to state whether the decedent left a will, and if so, what became of it. Finally, it has to explain any information the applicant could not find. That last piece is where filings often stall. An applicant who cannot locate a half-sibling still has to say so. So does one unsure whether an old marriage ever legally ended. The court does not accept a gap left unaddressed. Courts use these details to rule out competing claims before anyone gets paid.

Two protections the court builds in

An heirship order can bind people who never show up in court, so Texas builds in two safeguards. First, § 202.009 requires an attorney ad litem for any heir whose name or location is unknown. The court can extend that appointment to an incapacitated heir too. Second, § 202.051 governs citation. Every distributee age 12 or older gets served, if their address can reasonably be found. A parent or guardian stands in for any younger distributee. Both safeguards exist for the same reason: an order cannot bind someone who was never properly told about it.

This is why an easy-looking case can still take months. Locating a missing heir is not optional paperwork, and neither is waiting out a proper citation period. Skip either step, and the final order can get reopened later.

The small estate shortcut, and its ceiling

Not every estate needs a full heirship proceeding. Chapter 205 lets an heir skip it, but only if the numbers fit. Section 205.001 first requires that “30 days have elapsed since the date of the decedent’s death,” among other conditions. No petition for a personal representative can be pending or already granted. And the estate’s assets, excluding homestead and exempt property, cannot exceed $75,000. A judge still has to approve the affidavit before it does anything.

The ceiling cuts both ways. Once a probate proceeding is already pending, the affidavit stops being an option. The same is true once non-exempt assets pass $75,000; then the family is back in a full heirship proceeding. An Austin household with a modest bank account often qualifies. A household with even one investment property usually does not.

Where intestate succession Austin proceedings actually happen

Travis County runs two statutory probate courts, created under Tex. Gov’t Code § 25.2291(c): Probate Court No. 1 and Probate Court No. 2. Heirship, guardianship, and trust filings go through the County Clerk’s office, not the District Clerk. That distinction trips up people used to filing other matters in district court. Cases are docketed between the two probate courts by number, so an heir cannot simply choose a preferred docket.

The bottom line

The tables in §§ 201.001 through 201.003 answer who inherits. They don’t answer how anyone proves that to a bank. That gap is the real work behind proving an heir’s claim in Austin. It means a sworn heirship application, a full accounting of marriages and children, and court-ordered citation. If an heir cannot be found, it means an attorney ad litem too. Only after all that does a title company treat the outcome as settled.

The small estate affidavit shortens this process for estates under the § 205.001 threshold. But it disappears once an estate holds more than exempt property plus $75,000 in other assets. Above that line, a family’s own certainty about the heirs means little. What matters is the order a Travis County probate court signs.

Keep reading: Intestate Succession Arizona: Who Inherits When There Is No Will · Small Estate Affidavit Arizona

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This article explains Texas intestacy and heirship procedure for general information only. It is not legal advice, and it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Who inherits depends on facts specific to each family and each asset. Anyone dealing with an estate left without a will should speak with a licensed Texas attorney about their own situation.

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