You probably assume that if something happened to you, your spouse or children would simply inherit everything and the law would follow what feels fair. You have a home in Katy, some savings, maybe a retirement account, and you want it to go to the people you care about with as little drama as possible. Texas estate laws do not always line up with that picture, and that gap is where families often run into trouble.
Those laws decide who owns what during your life, who has a say if you are incapacitated, and who receives your property after you pass. They also control how easy or difficult it will be for your family to work with the courts in Fort Bend County or Harris County. If your plan was created in another state, or if you never really had a plan at all, Texas rules can change the outcome in ways that surprise you.
At Theander & Grimes, we focus our practice on estate planning and elder law in Katy, and we regularly help families in Fort Bend and Harris Counties adjust their plans to fit Texas estate laws. We see how community property rules, intestacy, homestead protections, and Medicaid rules play out in real lives. In this guide, we walk through the key Texas laws that can affect your estate plan, and how to use them to protect your family instead of being blindsided by them.
Why Texas Estate Laws Shape Your Plan More Than You Think
Estate planning is not just about signing a will or a stack of forms. It is about matching your wishes to the legal framework of the state where you live. Texas has its own set of rules that govern property ownership, probate, and what happens if you do nothing. These rules can help your family if you plan around them, and they can cut across your intentions if you ignore them.
Many families believe that a simple will from an online service, or a binder of documents they signed years ago in another state, is enough to control what happens. In practice, Texas default rules about who inherits, how property is characterized as community or separate, and how the probate courts work can override those assumptions. The result is often that people you did not intend to involve, such as stepchildren or distant relatives, end up with legal rights in your estate.
Consider a Katy couple who moved from another state. They brought an old will that leaves “everything to my spouse, then to my children.” Under Texas law, that simple phrase might not line up neatly with community and separate property rules, especially if there are children from prior relationships or assets acquired before the marriage. As a firm with over a decade of shared experience helping local families plan, we spend a lot of time walking clients through how Texas would treat their situation if they made no changes. That conversation is often the turning point that leads to a truly Texas-tailored plan.
How Texas Community Property Rules Affect Married Couples
Texas is a community property state. That means, in general, that most assets you and your spouse acquire during the marriage belong to both of you together, while certain assets belong only to one of you. Community property includes things like salaries earned during the marriage and the house you bought together in Katy. Separate property can include what you owned before marriage, inheritances, and certain gifts.
These labels matter because they affect who has an ownership interest while you are alive and who may inherit if one spouse dies. For example, if you have children from a prior relationship, your share of the community property could pass in part to those children instead of entirely to your current spouse, unless you plan otherwise. If you assume “my spouse will get everything” simply because you are married, Texas community property rules can prove you wrong in painful ways.
Blended families are where we see community property issues surface most often. A husband might assume his wife will stay in the family home as long as she wishes, then it will pass to his children from his first marriage. Without careful planning, Texas law might give the wife certain rights in the home that conflict with what the children expect, or give the children partial interests that make it difficult for the surviving spouse to sell or refinance. At Theander & Grimes, we regularly review these scenarios with couples in second marriages and design plans that clearly spell out how each person’s share of community and separate property will pass, so there are fewer surprises and fewer opportunities for conflict later.
Community property rules also affect decisions about how to title accounts, how to handle separate property brought into the marriage, and whether to use tools like marital property agreements. You do not need to become a property law scholar, but you do need a plan that reflects how Texas will actually treat what you own as a married couple.
What Texas Intestacy Laws Do If You Have No Will
If you pass away without a valid will, Texas intestacy laws decide who receives your property. These laws follow a fixed formula based on your family situation, and they do not ask what anyone thinks is fair. For many families in Katy, the outcome under intestacy is very different from what they assumed.
Take a simple example. A married person with children from that same marriage dies without a will. Under Texas law, the surviving spouse typically keeps their own share of community property and receives the deceased spouse’s half of the community property. However, separate property is treated differently. Part of that separate property may go to the surviving spouse and part to the children. If there are children from a prior relationship, the intestacy split can be more dramatic, with the spouse and those children sharing interests in certain assets in ways the family did not expect.
Now imagine that the main asset is a house in Katy that is partly separate property and partly community property, or that includes equity built up before and after marriage. Under intestacy, children and spouse may end up co-owning pieces of that house. They may not agree on whether to sell, rent, or keep it in the family. The law does not look at who actually lives there, who pays the mortgage, or who is closest to you emotionally. In our probate work, we see many disputes that trace back to intestacy outcomes like this, where a will would have allowed the person to shape a more practical and peaceful solution.
Intestacy also ignores special circumstances. It does not protect a child with a disability who might lose government benefits if they inherit outright. It does not account for estranged relatives or for people you treat as family but are not legally related. If your plan is to “let the law handle it,” you should understand that the law follows its own script, not yours. A Texas-specific will or trust lets you rewrite that script to match your values.
Texas Homestead Protections and What They Mean for Your Home
For many Katy families, the homestead is their largest and most emotionally important asset. Texas law gives the homestead strong protections, but those protections have side effects you need to understand. Homestead rules can shield your primary residence from certain creditors, and they give a surviving spouse important rights to continue living in the home.
One key feature is that a surviving spouse often has the right to occupy the homestead, even if the property is subject to claims from children or other heirs. That means that adult children may own an interest in the house on paper, but they cannot simply force a sale while the surviving spouse chooses to live there. This can be a relief for a spouse who fears being displaced, but it can also delay or complicate how and when children ever see their inheritance from the home.
Homestead protections can get especially tricky in blended families. Suppose a husband in Katy dies leaving a homestead and children from a prior marriage. The surviving wife may have the right to stay in the home, even if the children become co-owners of part of the property. Over time, disagreements about maintenance, taxes, or whether to sell can strain relationships. Because we work with local homeowners whose plans revolve around the homestead, we often structure documents that respect the surviving spouse’s right to remain while also providing clarity about long-term ownership, buyout options, or what happens when the surviving spouse can no longer live there.
Effective planning can also coordinate homestead rights with other assets, such as life insurance or savings, so that children are not relying solely on an eventual share of the home. The goal is to turn Texas homestead protections into a safety net for your spouse and a predictable part of your children’s inheritance, rather than a source of confusion and friction.
How Texas Probate Really Works for Families in Katy
Probate has a bad reputation in many states, but in Texas it can be relatively straightforward when the plan is drafted with local law in mind. Probate is simply the court process to prove a will, appoint someone to manage the estate, and make sure debts and inheritances are handled correctly. In Fort Bend County and Harris County, families often move through probate more smoothly when the will is designed for what Texas calls independent administration.
Independent administration allows the person in charge of the estate, often called the executor, to act with less day to day court supervision. The court typically admits the will, appoints the executor, and then the executor can pay bills, gather assets, and distribute property without needing constant hearings. However, Texas courts generally look for specific language in the will that authorizes independent administration and grants appropriate powers to the executor. Out-of-state wills or very old documents may not include that language, which can force a more burdensome process known as dependent administration.
In a typical Katy case with a well-drafted Texas will, probate might involve filing the will, attending a brief hearing, and then handling most tasks outside of court with guidance from an attorney. When documents lack the right Texas-focused terms, the estate might need more filings, ongoing court oversight, and possibly extra expense or delay. At Theander & Grimes, our probate work in Fort Bend County and Harris County informs how we draft estate plans. We design wills not only to say who gets what, but also to give your family the best chance of using the more efficient probate options Texas law allows.
Good planning can also reduce what must pass through probate at all, by properly using beneficiary designations or joint ownership where appropriate. The key is coordination. Randomly naming beneficiaries or relying on out-of-date forms can actually cause more confusion. A Texas-focused estate plan looks at probate not as something to fear at all costs, but as one tool among many, and then shapes your documents so that if probate is needed, it is as simple as Texas law allows.
Incapacity, Guardianship, and Texas Planning Documents
Estate planning is not just about what happens after death. A complete Texas plan also addresses what happens if you cannot manage your own affairs during your lifetime. Incapacity can result from illness, injury, or age, and without the right documents, your family may need to ask a court to appoint a guardian to make decisions for you.
Texas law provides planning tools that let you choose who will act for you and in what way. These include a durable power of attorney for financial matters, a medical power of attorney for healthcare decisions, and directives to physicians that state your wishes for end-of-life care. When these documents are properly drafted and signed while you have capacity, they can often avoid the need for a formal guardianship. Your chosen agents can work with banks, doctors, and others because Texas law recognizes their authority.
When these documents are missing or too limited, families sometimes find themselves in a difficult position. A loved one can no longer manage bills, sign checks, or consent to procedures, and institutions refuse to honor informal solutions. At that point, Texas law may require a court proceeding to establish a guardianship of the person, the estate, or both. Guardianship can be time-consuming, public, and emotionally draining, especially if relatives disagree about who should serve.
Because Theander & Grimes also handles guardianship matters, we see how hard these cases can be on families and how much conflict they can surface. That experience shapes how we design powers of attorney and other incapacity documents. We aim to give your chosen agents enough authority to act, include safeguards where needed, and tailor the documents to your specific family dynamics. A thoughtful incapacity plan is one of the clearest ways Texas law can work for you instead of against you.
The Impact of Medicaid and Long-Term Care on Texas Estate Plans
As you or your parents age, medical and long-term care costs can quickly become one of the biggest threats to family assets. Many Texans eventually look to Medicaid to help pay for nursing home care. Medicaid is a joint federal and state program, and Texas applies its own rules about who qualifies and how assets are treated. These rules interact directly with your estate plan and with how your property is titled.
In general terms, Medicaid in Texas has limits on the assets and income an applicant can have and still qualify. Transfers of property for less than fair market value within a certain look-back period can create penalties, delaying eligibility. After a Medicaid recipient passes away, Texas may also seek to recover certain costs from the estate in a process often called estate recovery. If your plan involves giving away assets at the last minute or assumes the state will not look back at prior transfers, you could unintentionally disqualify yourself or your spouse at a critical time.
Early, informed planning under Texas rules often allows families to preserve more options. That might include structuring ownership of the home, understanding what assets are countable for Medicaid purposes, and deciding which tools make sense for your situation. Because we focus on elder law and Medicaid planning in addition to estate planning, we pay attention to how your documents and your long-term care strategy fit together. Waiting until a crisis happens usually narrows the choices and can increase stress for everyone involved.
The point is not to hide assets or make promises about qualifying. The point is to understand the rules Texas applies, think ahead about how long-term care might affect your spouse or children, and build an estate plan that takes those realities into account rather than treating them as an afterthought.
When You Should Update Your Plan for Texas Law
Estate planning is not a one-time event, especially when you live in a state with distinctive laws like Texas. Certain life events are clear signals that it is time to review your documents with Texas rules in mind. Moving to Texas from another state is one of the biggest. Your out-of-state will or powers of attorney might be technically valid here, but they often do not match how Texas courts and institutions expect things to look.
Other common triggers include getting married or divorced, buying a home in Katy or elsewhere in Texas, having a child or grandchild, or receiving a significant inheritance. A diagnosis that could affect your capacity is another time when you do not want to rely on old, unclear documents. Each of these changes can alter your family structure, your assets, or your health in ways that Texas estate laws treat differently than your previous plan anticipated.
We routinely meet with new Texas residents who bring in neatly organized binders from their prior state, only to discover that key provisions clash with how Texas handles community property, homestead rights, or independent administration in probate. We also see long-time Texans whose wills were signed decades ago, before second marriages, business ventures, or grandchildren, and whose plans no longer fit their lives. At Theander & Grimes, we walk through your existing documents in plain language, point out where they work well under Texas law and where gaps exist, and then help you decide what revisions make sense.
Thinking of your plan as something you revisit at key milestones, rather than a static document, is one of the best ways to keep Texas estate laws working in your favor instead of surprising your family later.
Plan With Texas Law in Mind to Protect Your Family
Texas estate laws can be a powerful ally for your family when you understand them and plan with them in mind. Community property rules, intestacy, homestead protections, probate procedures, incapacity documents, and Medicaid considerations all interact to shape what happens to your home, your savings, and the people you care about. The difference between a generic plan and a Texas-focused plan often shows up years later, when your family is already under stress and must live with the results.
If you saw your own situation in any of the examples here, whether as a new Texas resident, a Katy homeowner, a member of a blended family, or someone caring for aging parents, now is a good time to act. A focused conversation with a local estate planning and elder law firm can turn vague worries into a clear, written plan that reflects both your wishes and the way Texas actually works. To talk about how Texas estate laws affect your plan, contact Theander & Grimes today at the number below.