Texas Transfer on Death Deed: Estates Code Chapter 114 (2026)

What the Texas Legislature changed after 2015

Most pages on this topic quote the law as if it were the 2015 text. The history notes under Chapter 114 on the Legislature’s code site show four later acts, and one of them removed the form people still search for (“texas transfer on death deed form” and “transfer on death deed form texas” are among the searches this page answers).

The Chapter 114 text we read on October 12, 2026 shows no amendment after the April 1, 2025 effective date of H.B. 4611. S.B. 874 says the repeal of Subchapter D “does not affect the validity of a transfer on death deed or a cancellation of a transfer on death deed executed before, on, or after the effective date of this Act.” The Senate Research Center’s analysis gives the reason: with the forms in the Supreme Court’s hands, “each time the forms need to be revised, the legislature will not have to pass a bill.”

About the form

Two premises circulate that the text does not support. There is no “statutory form” in the Estates Code today: the highest section number in Chapter 114 is 114.106. And we could not read the Supreme Court’s promulgated form, because txcourts.gov returned an access error to our requests on October 12, 2026; if a county or title company hands you a form, compare it with sections 114.055 and 114.057 below (our reading). What we can show is what the repealed 2017 statutory form told owners, since deeds signed on it remain valid. Its notice to owners said “MUST RECORD DEED: Before your death, this deed must be recorded with the county clerk where the property is located, or it will not be effective.” and, for married owners, “If you are married and want your spouse to own the property on your death, you must name your spouse as the primary beneficiary.” It also let the owner choose, for each beneficiary who does not survive, between an “anti-lapse election” and passing only to surviving beneficiaries, and said that if no option was chosen, “option (1), which is the anti-lapse election, will apply.”

The three requirements in section 114.055

The chapter covers “an interest in real property located in this state” (section 114.002(a)(5)) and lets “an individual” transfer “the individual's interest” (section 114.051). In the chapter text we read, there is no minimum property value, residency requirement or lawyer requirement (our reading).

Co-owners and community property

Two definitions decide how a Texas deed behaves between co-owners. A “joint owner with right of survivorship” excludes “a tenant in common or an owner of community property with or without a right of survivorship” (section 114.002(a)(3)). If a transferor is a joint owner with survivorship and another joint owner survives, the property “belongs to the surviving joint owner or owners” and the deed fails; if the transferor is the last survivor, the deed is effective (section 114.103(b)). A deed made by joint owners with survivorship is revoked only by all living joint owners (section 114.057(e)).

For spouses, the Texas rules on what a spouse owns sit outside Chapter 114. Community property is property “acquired by either spouse during marriage” other than separate property (Family Code section 3.002), and during marriage each spouse has “sole management, control, and disposition of the community property that the spouse would have owned if single” (Family Code section 3.102(a)). Property acquired by gift, devise or descent is the spouse’s separate property (Texas Constitution Article XVI, section 15). On a homestead, Article XVI, section 50(b) says an owner “may not sell or abandon the homestead without the consent of each owner and the spouse of each owner.” Chapter 114 does not mention spousal joinder, and nothing we read says whether recording a deed that takes effect at death counts as selling the homestead, so that is a question for a Texas real estate lawyer (our reading). A Texas homestead is limited to 10 acres in town and, for a family, 200 acres in the country (Property Code section 41.002).

Revoking or changing the deed

The owner has three ways out, and they are narrower than most summaries suggest.

• A later deed or an instrument of revocation. Section 114.057(a) requires that it expressly revoke or be inconsistent with the first deed, that it be “acknowledged by the transferor after the acknowledgment of the deed being revoked,” and that it be “recorded before the transferor's death in the deed records in the county clerk's office of the county where the deed being revoked is recorded.”
• A sale or other lifetime transfer. Under section 114.102 the deed is void as to a later buyer if a valid instrument, or a memorandum giving notice of it, is recorded in the same county before the owner dies. Section 114.057(f) adds that the revocation section does not limit the effect of a lifetime transfer.
• A divorce, only in part. A final judgment dissolving a marriage between the owner and a spouse named as beneficiary revokes the deed as to that spouse only “if notice of the judgment is recorded before the transferor's death” (section 114.057(c)).

What does not work: a will (section 114.057(b)), a clause in the deed saying it is irrevocable (section 114.052 makes the deed revocable “regardless of whether the deed or another instrument contains a contrary provision”), or an unrecorded paper of any kind.

While the owner is alive

Section 114.101 lists what the deed leaves alone during the owner’s life. The owner keeps the right to transfer or encumber the property, homestead rights, and “ad valorem tax exemptions, including exemptions for residence homestead, persons 65 years of age or older, persons with disabilities, and veterans.” The deed does not affect a creditor’s rights “even if the creditor has actual or constructive notice of the deed,” does not create “a legal or equitable interest in favor of the designated beneficiary,” does not subject the property to the beneficiary’s creditors, does not trigger “statutory real estate notice or disclosure requirements,” and does not affect “eligibility for any form of public assistance, subject to applicable federal law” (section 114.101(4)).

That last phrase matters for long-term care planning: the Code leaves federal law in charge, and the text of Chapter 114 does not itself decide Medicaid eligibility (our reading). The estate recovery side is below.

When the owner dies

Section 114.103(a) sets the order, “except as otherwise provided in the transfer on death deed” and other law:

1. A beneficiary who survives the transferor by 120 hours takes the interest “in accordance with the deed.”
2. A share of a beneficiary who does not survive by 120 hours lapses and passes under Subchapter D of Chapter 255 of the Estates Code “as if the transfer on death deed were a devise made in a will.” Chapter 255 Subchapter D holds the Code’s rules for a will devisee who does not survive.
3. Several beneficiaries take “in equal and undivided shares with no right of survivorship.”

The deed also transfers real property “without covenant of warranty of title even if the deed contains a contrary provision” (section 114.103(d)), so the beneficiary has no warranty claim against the estate on that ground. A beneficiary can disclaim under Estates Code Chapter 122 (section 114.105).

The mortgage

Three texts answer the question, and they cover different moments.

Two things follow, both our reading. First, the federal protection is written around a relative or the borrower’s spouse or children; the text we read does not give the same protection to a friend or an unrelated beneficiary. Second, the beneficiary inherits the debt as well as the house: if a personal representative has been appointed, section 114.104(b) has the representative notify the lender, and the lender then elects under Estates Code section 355.151 between treating the claim as a matured secured claim or a “preferred debt and lien” claim. Subsection (c) bars the lender from pursuing a deficiency against the estate if it elects the second.

The numbering matters for anyone checking the federal rule: the death-of-borrower exemption is paragraph (d)(5) of 12 U.S.C. 1701j-3. Paragraph (d)(8) is “a transfer into an inter vivos trust in which the borrower is and remains a beneficiary.” For how Texas treats a lien on a homestead at all, see our pages on Texas hard money loans and Texas DSCR loans, which quote Article XVI, section 50.

Creditors: what the deed does not shield

Texas protects a homestead “from forced sale, for the payment of all debts except for” a list in Article XVI, section 50(a) of the Constitution, and Property Code section 41.001 exempts a homestead from seizure for creditors’ claims “except for encumbrances properly fixed on homestead property.” Those protections work on the property of the debtor. The deed adds its own rule after death in section 114.106:

• When it applies. “To the extent the transferor's estate is insufficient” to pay a claim, administration expenses, estate tax or an allowance to a surviving spouse or minor or incapacitated adult children, the personal representative “may enforce that liability against real property transferred at the transferor's death by a transfer on death deed to the same extent the personal representative could enforce that liability if the real property were part of the probate estate” (section 114.106(a)).
• Who else can sue. If the representative does not start a proceeding “on or before the 90th day after the date the representative receives a demand for payment,” a creditor, a distributee, a surviving spouse, a guardian for a minor or incapacitated child, or a taxing authority may (section 114.106(c)).
• Sharing the burden. With several deeds or other nonprobate assets, liability “may be apportioned” by net value at death (section 114.106(d)).
• The clock. A proceeding must start “not later than the second anniversary of the transferor's death,” except rights under section 114.104(d) (section 114.106(e)).
• Costs. A court may award costs and reasonable attorney’s fees (section 114.106(f)).

Whether a particular creditor can reach a particular homestead after death also depends on the homestead rules above, which Chapter 114 does not repeal (our reading).

Medicaid estate recovery

This is the section other pages on the topic skip, and it changed on August 27, 2026.

What the rule says. The Health and Human Services Commission’s Medicaid Estate Recovery Program (MERP) rules are in Title 1, Part 15, Chapter 373 of the Texas Administrative Code. The Commission proposed amendments in the March 20, 2026 Texas Register (51 TexReg 1777) and adopted them “without changes to the proposed text,” filed August 7, 2026, with an effective date of August 27, 2026. In the rule, “Estate” is defined by reference to Texas Estates Code §22.012, and that section defines “estate” as “a decedent's property” as it exists, changes form, is augmented or diminished. The claim is a Class 7 probate claim, may be made for covered long-term care services received at age 55 or older, and is filed within 120 calendar days after MERP has actual notice of the death.

What the federal law allows. Under 42 U.S.C. 1396p(b)(4), a state’s “estate” “shall include” assets within the estate “as defined for purposes of State probate law,” and “may include, at the option of the State,” assets conveyed to a survivor or heir through “joint tenancy, tenancy in common, survivorship, life estate, living trust, or other arrangement.” Texas Government Code section 546.0403 directs the executive commissioner to ensure the federal recovery section is implemented.

What Chapter 114 adds. Section 114.106(b) says property passing by the deed is not part of the probate estate “for any purpose, including for purposes of Section 546.0403, Government Code.” The Legislature rewrote that cross-reference in H.B. 4611 (effective April 1, 2025), but the sentence has named the Medicaid recovery statute throughout.

Our reading. The Texas rule defines “estate” by the Estates Code probate definition and does not use the federal option to reach assets conveyed outside probate, and section 114.106(b) says the deed property is not probate estate for the Medicaid section. But section 114.106(a) lets a personal representative reach the property when the estate cannot pay “a claim against the estate,” and a MERP claim is a probate-estate claim under the rule. Nothing we read says which sentence controls when the only asset is a house passing by deed. We found no court opinion on the point in our sources, so we do not state it as settled; an elder law attorney is the person to ask.

Limits the rule itself sets (text as proposed and adopted unchanged): no claim while there is a surviving spouse, a child under 21, a blind or disabled child, or an unmarried adult child who lived in the decedent’s homestead for at least 12 months; no claim if the recoverable estate is $15,000 or less or the recoverable Medicaid costs are $5,000 or less; and a homestead hardship exemption for the first $150,000 of appraisal-district value where siblings or direct descendants inherit with household income under 300 percent of the federal poverty threshold. A hardship waiver request is due within 60 calendar days of the notice of intent to file a claim.

Property tax after the death

During the owner’s life the deed leaves exemptions alone (section 114.101(1)(C)). After death:

• Surviving spouse, 55 or older. The spouse of someone who held the older-owner (65 or older) exemption keeps “an exemption for the same property” if the spouse was 55 or older when the owner died and the home remains the spouse’s residence homestead (Tax Code section 11.13(q)); the school-tax limit carries over on the same conditions (section 11.26(i)).
• Any other beneficiary. A residence homestead must be “occupied as the individual's principal residence by an owner” (section 11.13(j)(1)(D)), a person claiming an exemption “must file an exemption application form with the chief appraiser” (section 11.43(a)), and an allowed exemption applies “until it changes ownership or the person's qualification for the exemption changes” (section 11.43(c)). Our reading: when title moves at death, a child or other beneficiary who moves in applies in their own name. The current school-district exemption is $140,000 of appraised value for an adult, plus $60,000 more if disabled or 65 or older (section 11.13(b), (c)).

A beneficiary who rents the house out rather than living in it gets no homestead exemption (our reading of section 11.13(j)(1)(D)).

Recording: where, what it costs

The deed is recorded in the county clerk of the county where the land is (section 114.055(3)); there is no state filing. The statutory fee schedule in Local Government Code section 118.011(a)(2) is $5.00 for the first page and $4.00 for each additional page with visible marks, plus $0.25 for each name over five to be indexed. A three-page deed with five names costs $5.00 + 2 × $4.00 = $13.00 at those rates (our arithmetic); section 118.0216 adds a separate records management and preservation fee paid at filing, and the amount, any county supplements and e-filing charges are set by the county, so ask the clerk before relying on that figure. Do not put a Social Security number in the deed: “The preparer of a document may not include an individual's social security number in a document that is presented for recording” (Property Code section 11.008(b)).

An unrecorded conveyance is “void as to a creditor or to a subsequent purchaser for a valuable consideration without notice” (Property Code section 13.001(a)); for a transfer on death deed, the statute goes further and makes recording before death a validity condition.

Transfer on death deed, will, small estate affidavit, muniment of title

All four are in the Estates Code, so the choice is partly about what each one can reach and when.

An affidavit of heirship (Chapter 203) is not a fifth way to transfer title: a recorded affidavit about the identity of heirs becomes “prima facie evidence” in a proceeding to declare heirship or a suit involving title after it has been “of record for five years or more” (section 203.001), which is evidence rather than a conveyance (our reading).

What a Texas owner or heir can do with this

This is a list of decision points drawn from the texts above, not advice for a particular property.

For an owner considering the deed:

• Check each of the three requirements in section 114.055 against the county’s recorded copy, not the signed copy.
• Name an alternate beneficiary and decide whether the deed should say what happens if a beneficiary does not survive by 120 hours (section 114.103(a) applies “except as otherwise provided in the transfer on death deed”).
• If married, ask how the homestead consent language of Article XVI, section 50(b) and community property rules apply before signing.
• Keep a copy of any later deed, sale memorandum or revocation and confirm each was recorded in the same county before death.
• If long-term care or Medicaid is a realistic need, ask an elder law attorney about section 114.106 and the August 27, 2026 amendments to 1 Texas Administrative Code chapter 373.

For an heir or beneficiary:

• Pull the recorded deed and the lien records; the lender, the taxing units and any personal representative are the people with claims on the property.
• Count the 120 hours (section 114.103(a)(1)) and the two years (section 114.106(e)).
• For income tax, a transfer at death generally resets the tax basis to date-of-death value if the property is in the gross estate (26 U.S.C. 1014(a)(1) and (b)(9)); see our step-up in basis guide and the capital gains on real estate page for the selling side. Other states’ rules differ; our 50-state transfer on death deed table compares them.

Who this help is for. A Texas title company or real estate and estate-planning attorney drafts and records the deed; an elder law attorney handles Medicaid questions; a tax professional handles basis. A financial adviser match does not fit that need, so we offer only an alert below.

This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice.

FAQ

Sources, read and saved on October 12, 2026: Texas Estates Code Chapters 22, 101, 114, 203, 205, 255, 256, 257 and 355, Texas Government Code Chapters 22 and 546, Texas Local Government Code Chapter 118, Texas Property Code Chapters 11, 13 and 41, Texas Tax Code Chapter 11, Texas Family Code Chapter 3 and Texas Constitution Article XVI, all from the Texas Legislature’s code site (tcss.legis.texas.gov, the data source of statutes.capitol.texas.gov); enrolled bill texts and the Senate Research Center analysis for S.B. 462 (2015), S.B. 2150 (2017), S.B. 874 and H.B. 2782 (2019) and H.B. 4611 (2023) from capitol.texas.gov; the Texas Register of March 20, 2026 (proposed) and August 21, 2026 (adopted) for 1 Texas Administrative Code Chapter 373 from sos.state.tx.us; 12 U.S.C. 1701j-3, 42 U.S.C. 1396p and 26 U.S.C. 1014 (U.S. Code 2024 edition, govinfo.gov). We could not reach the Supreme Court of Texas’s current deed form on txcourts.gov. This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice.