Most people searching for information about Texas inheritance law are doing it in a hard moment. A parent has just died. A sibling is questioning the will. Or someone is quietly realizing that if something happened to them tomorrow, their family would have no idea what to do. Whatever brought you here, the first thing worth knowing is that Texas inheritance law is more complicated than most families expect. The legal and financial questions can’t be separated.
That connection between law and finance is why our team at Beck Law Firm includes two Certified Public Accountants, including Managing Shareholder Kristen Beck. When a family member dies, questions about asset distribution, stepped-up basis, inherited retirement accounts, and final tax obligations arrive at the same time as questions about wills and probate. Those threads don’t untangle cleanly, and the families who navigate this best tend to work with counsel who can hold both at once.
The Two Paths: Dying With a Will vs. Without One
Under the Texas Estates Code, every inheritance follows one of two paths: testate succession, where the deceased left a valid will, or intestate succession, where no valid will exists. Which path applies shapes almost everything about who receives what and how quickly the estate can be distributed.
A valid will gives the person making it broad control, including the ability to name an executor, designate guardians for minor children, and direct specific assets to specific people. Without a will, those decisions shift to the fixed statutory hierarchy in Texas Estates Code Chapter 201, which distributes property based on legal relationships rather than the decedent’s actual wishes. A will can also be treated as partially intestate if it fails to address all property, or if a named beneficiary dies before the testator and no alternate is named.
How Community Property & Separate Property Change Everything
Texas is a community property state. Assets acquired during a marriage are jointly owned by both spouses, while assets owned before the marriage, or received as a gift or inheritance during it, are classified as separate property. These two categories carry entirely different inheritance rules, and the difference matters most when there are children from a prior relationship.
Under intestate succession with a surviving spouse and children from that marriage, the spouse inherits all community property. But the spouse receives only one-third of separate personal property and a life estate (the right to use the property during their lifetime, without full ownership) in one-third of separate real property. The children inherit the remainder. Where things get complicated is when the children are from a prior relationship: the decedent’s half of community property passes to those children rather than the surviving spouse. That outcome can leave a widow or widower co-owning the family home with their late spouse’s children from a previous marriage.
Who Inherits Without a Will: The Intestate Succession Order
Texas intestate succession follows a strict priority order under Texas Estates Code Chapter 201. Spouses and children come first, then parents, then siblings and their descendants, and on down through more distant relatives. If no eligible heir can be identified, the estate escheats, meaning it passes to the State of Texas.
Two details catch families off guard. First, to inherit at all, a person must survive the decedent by at least 120 hours under Texas Estates Code sections 121.052 and 121.151. Second, stepchildren who were never legally adopted have no intestate inheritance rights, regardless of how close the relationship was or how long it lasted.
Texas does recognize common-law marriages, and a valid common-law spouse holds the same intestate inheritance rights as a formally married spouse. The key requirements are that the couple agreed to be married, held themselves out publicly as married, and lived together in Texas. This matters in West Texas, where informal arrangements are more common than many people realize.
Nonprobate Assets: What Inheritance Law Doesn’t Control
One of the most important distinctions in Texas inheritance is the line between probate assets and nonprobate assets. Nonprobate assets don’t pass through a will or the intestate succession order at all. Life insurance policies, retirement accounts such as IRAs and 401(k)s, bank accounts with a named payable-on-death beneficiary, and jointly titled assets with a right of survivorship transfer directly to whoever is named, bypassing probate entirely.
A beneficiary designation on a retirement account overrides any instruction in a will. If someone named a former spouse as the beneficiary of a 401(k) and never updated it, that former spouse may inherit the account regardless of what the will says. Outdated designations are one of the most common and costly errors we see in Texas estates.
Two additional tools can simplify the process for smaller or simpler estates. A small estate affidavit is available for estates valued under $75,000, excluding homestead and exempt property, and allows heirs to collect assets without full probate. An affidavit of heirship can be used to transfer real property when no will was timely probated, though it requires a knowledgeable disinterested witness and a notary. A Transfer-on-Death deed (TODD) lets a property owner designate who inherits real estate at death, automatically and outside of probate. Each tool has its own eligibility requirements and limitations.
Texas Inheritance & Taxes: What Families Actually Owe
Texas has no state inheritance or estate tax. The state repealed its inheritance tax effective September 1, 2015. That part is straightforward.
The federal picture shifted significantly in 2025. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed July 4, 2025, permanently set the federal estate and gift tax exemption at $15 million per individual, or $30 million for married couples using portability, beginning January 1, 2026, with inflation indexing going forward. The widely anticipated reduction tied to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act sunset didn’t happen. Several articles still published online are warning readers about a sunset that no longer applies, making their tax sections actively misleading. For most Texas families, no federal estate tax will be owed.
That doesn’t mean there are no tax questions. Inherited appreciated property, such as a family home or a stock portfolio, receives a stepped-up cost basis at the date of death, which can significantly reduce capital gains tax if the beneficiary later sells. Inherited retirement accounts carry required minimum distribution rules that differ depending on the beneficiary’s relationship to the decedent. And someone needs to file a final federal income tax return for the person who died. These are questions where having a CPA-attorney, rather than a lawyer alone, changes the quality of the advice a family receives.
Inheritance Disputes & the Lubbock Probate Process
Probate in Lubbock County is administered through the County Court (Constitutional) at 904 Broadway, Room 207, Lubbock. The court’s own policy makes clear that most probate applicants must be represented by a licensed attorney, because an executor acts in a fiduciary capacity on behalf of beneficiaries and creditors, not solely on their own behalf. Filing a probate application without counsel in most cases constitutes the unauthorized practice of law and won’t be permitted by the court.
Per stirpes distribution is a default rule worth understanding. It means that if a beneficiary dies before the decedent, that beneficiary’s share passes down to their own descendants rather than being redistributed among the surviving beneficiaries. This can produce results the decedent wouldn’t have chosen without careful planning.
Will contests must generally be filed within two years of the will being admitted to probate. Grounds include lack of testamentary capacity, meaning the testator didn’t understand what they owned or who their heirs were, undue influence, fraud, improper execution, or the existence of a later valid will. These disputes move quickly and often turn on medical records, witness testimony, and financial history.
Our Of Counsel, Sam Hawthorne, holds dual Board Certifications in Tax Law and Estate Planning and Probate Law from the Texas Board of Legal Specialization, the highest professional distinction a Texas attorney can earn, held by only a small percentage of lawyers in the state. Kristen Beck and Andrew Beck both graduated magna cum laude from Texas Tech University School of Law. Those credentials exist because the matters our clients bring to us demand them.
Planning Ahead vs. Reacting After the Fact
Texas inheritance law rewards proactive planning and punishes assumptions. The surviving spouse doesn’t automatically inherit everything. Not all assets pass through a will or the intestate succession order. Beneficiary designations can override years of careful estate planning. And even with the federal tax exemption now more favorable than many people have read, the income tax complexity that follows an inheritance is real and easy to miss without financial counsel alongside legal counsel.
If you’re dealing with an estate, a disputed will, or want to make sure your own plan holds up under scrutiny, we’re here to help. Contact Beck Law Firm at (806) 304-7946.