Somebody passed away, the house is still in their name, and at the funeral a cousin said the word “probate” like it was a diagnosis. If you are trying to figure out what the Texas probate process looks like for a regular family, and whether yours even needs it, you are in the right place.
I’m Raul Bolufe. My company buys inherited houses and heir shares across Texas. I’m not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. It is what we have seen on our deals.
I am not going to walk you through the courthouse side. A probate attorney can do that, and if you go that way, you should hire one. What I can tell you is what the Texas probate process looked like from the kitchen table, for the families we bought from. When it was already finished before they called. When they skipped it. When there was a will in a drawer. When a trust made it unnecessary. And when a title company said nothing but a judge would do.
Names are left out. Every story here comes from our own files.
What is the Texas probate process from a family’s point of view?
From where the family sits, probate is the court road. Somebody takes the paperwork to a judge, and the judge signs off on who is in charge of the estate and, in the end, who gets the house.
That is the whole picture most families have, and honestly, it is enough to start. For a family, the Texas probate process is how a house gets out of a dead person’s name with a judge’s signature behind it.
Here is what families tell me it feels like from the inside. They have to find a lawyer. They have to find the will, if there is one. They have to get the rest of the family to agree on who handles it. Then they wait on a calendar they do not control.
Most of the people who call me never started. A few finished it. Almost nobody calls me from the middle.
The families who finished the Texas probate process before they called me had one big thing going for them. The county records already showed who owned the house. That changes everything for a buyer, and I will get to it below.
The families who never started had a different thing in common. The house was still in Mom’s name or Grandpa’s name, sometimes for years. That is heir property, and we wrote a whole page on Texas heir property if that sounds like yours.
Do you always need probate to sell an inherited house?
On our deals, no. Most of the inherited houses we buy never went through probate at all.
When I text a family about a house, my message says we can put cash in their pocket without them having to pay for or go through a full probate, and that we can buy individual shares even if not everyone agrees. That is not a line I made up for the website. It is the text I actually send.
Take a house in Willis. A mother passed away, and the house was her son’s. The title report came back with no probate on file and no will. We bought it without anybody going through the Texas probate process. The son also had an old child support lien in his own name, and we negotiated a big chunk of it off as part of the deal.
What took the place of probate on that deal, and on most of ours, is a sworn statement called an affidavit of heirship. It lays out the family tree and gets signed in front of a notary with two witnesses who knew the family. I wrote a full guide on what an affidavit of heirship is in Texas, so I will not repeat it all here.
So the Texas probate process is one road, not the only road. If nobody in your family wants to go to court, read how we sell an inherited house without probate in Texas.
But I want to be fair to the Texas probate process. Sometimes the family already did it, and it made the sale easy. Sometimes a title company will not take anything less than a judge. Both show up below.
How long did probate take on deals we saw?
Here is the honest answer. I do not know, and I would not trust anybody who gives you a number without knowing your family.
On our deals, we mostly saw the before and the after of the Texas probate process. We almost never saw the middle.
Before. Families who never started. They called a lawyer, heard a price they did not have, and hung up. Then the house sat. Sometimes for years. Nobody wanted to be the one to make the next call.
After. Families who finished it on their own, long before I ever heard of them. By the time they called me, the waiting was already behind them.
I can tell you what the waiting looks like on the other roads, because we run those ourselves.
- The affidavit road. The paperwork is not the slow part. Finding the facts is. Old marriages, death dates, and two witnesses who knew the family long enough. When the family already knows who the witnesses are, it moves. When nobody remembers Grandpa’s first wife, it does not.
- Selling your share. We get title back fast because of our own team. After that, it moves as fast as the family signs.
- The judge road. When a title company sends a house toward a judge, it slows down. More on that below.
Every family I have seen go near the Texas probate process had a different speed. The speed was almost always about people, not paper.
What does the Texas probate process cost a family compared to other roads?
No numbers here, on purpose. I am not a lawyer, I do not set anybody’s fees, and every family is different.
What I can describe is who pays and how it feels.
Probate. The family hires the attorney and pays the bills. Somebody has to front the money, and in a lot of families that somebody is the sibling who cares the most and has the least. Then there is the cost nobody puts on an invoice. Phone calls, family group texts, and somebody taking off work to go downtown.
An affidavit on your own. Families tell me it costs less than the Texas probate process. But you still need someone to draft it, two witnesses, a notary, and the recording fee at the county. And if the title company sends it back, you pay again to fix it.
Selling to us. On our deals, the family pays nothing out of pocket. We pay for the title work, the affidavit, the notary who comes to you, the recording, and the outside attorneys and paralegals we work with. If the deal dies, we eat it.
There is one more cost families forget. The house itself. Taxes keep running while everybody waits on the Texas probate process, or waits on nothing at all. Liens sit there. The city sends letters.
Once you sell to us, liens and violations become our problem. We call, we negotiate, we pay. Child support liens, judgments, code violations, demolition orders. In West Columbia, a family thought a six figure lien meant they had to give the house up. We settled it for a small fraction. Property taxes and IRS liens are different. Those get paid, not negotiated. But you are not the one paying them. If back taxes are what keeps you up at night, here is how we handle an inherited house with back taxes in Texas.
What happens when there is a will nobody probated?
This one comes up every week. Mom had a will. It is in a drawer, or a safe deposit box, or somebody even recorded it at the county. But nobody ever took it through the Texas probate process.
In my experience, a will nobody took to court is almost as if it does not exist to a buyer or a title company. It might be a perfectly good will. It might say exactly what Mom wanted. On our deals, nobody could lean on it to sell.
Cath, the paralegal we work with, explained the difference to me in plain words. Recording a will is paperwork. Probating it is what gives the will its power. A lot of families think those are the same thing. On our deals, they were not.
A will is not the same as a probated will. We have seen a mother leave a will that named her daughter as executor, and nobody ever took it to court. On a deal like that, the family tree decides who owns the house, not the will. The daughter may believe the will put her in charge, but if it never went through the Texas probate process, it usually does not.
We have also seen a will that was recorded at the county but never probated, and the research turned up children from an earlier marriage that the widow did not seem to know about. A recorded will does not settle who the heirs are.
If the will matters to your family, talk to a probate attorney, and do it sooner rather than later. That is one call I cannot make for you.
What if the house is in a trust?
Then the Texas probate process might not be part of the story at all.
In Porter, half of a house was owned by a special needs trust. One of the owners had put his half into it years before. The trustee signed the deed. Cath, the paralegal we work with, told us no affidavit was needed, because that half never passed through a death. No probate. No affidavit. No witnesses. One signature from the person the trust named.
My rule on trusts is the same every time. Get the trust document. Find the trustee. Read what it says about selling. Families remember things differently. The document does not.
One catch. A family will sometimes tell me the house is in a trust while the county still shows Mom’s name. We check that first, so nobody signs twice.
What if probate is already done?
Then you might be holding the easiest inherited house in Texas.
Woodbranch. One heir called us. The probate was already finished and everything was already in his name. I made him a cash offer, he took it, and we closed through a title company. A normal, quick sale. No family tree to build, no witnesses, nobody to chase. He finished the Texas probate process before he ever picked up the phone, and it paid off.
Missouri City. An uncle owned half of a house. His half came to him through his sister’s will, which had gone through probate, and an executor’s deed. No affidavit needed on his side. He had years of back taxes sitting in his name, and he wanted his name off it. He signed at his kitchen table, he got paid quickly, and the taxes became our problem. The other half is still being worked out with his nephew, who lives there.
Temple. Two houses, one family. On one of them, a family member had already been appointed by the court to handle the estate, so on that house she was the only one who needed to sign. On the other house, the title search found no probate and no will, so all three living heirs signed. Same family, two different stacks of paperwork. As I told my team, the paperwork is different when there is an executor.
So when the Texas probate process is already finished, a buyer cares about one question. Is the house recorded in your name, or is there a person the court appointed who can sign? If the answer is yes, say so on the first call. It changes the whole conversation.
Not sure where your family stands? Look up the property on your county appraisal district site and check the owner name. If it still shows the person who passed away, tell us that too. Either answer is fine.
Woodbranch, Willis, and Porter are all up in Montgomery County. If your family’s house is there too, here is how we buy houses fast in Montgomery County.
What if the title company still wants a judge?
This is the part nobody warns you about. Sometimes a family skips the Texas probate process, signs a good affidavit, does everything right, and the title company still says only a judge will do.
It usually happens when the family line runs back further than anyone alive can swear to, or when an obituary lists kids the person raised but never adopted. As I tell my team, an obituary is written by a person who was there at the funeral, and it is not always correct.
Title companies send things back. It is their favorite hobby.
Here is what that means for the family. When it turns into a court case, we hire the attorney and we wait on the calendar. The heir who already sold to us is not the one carrying it. That is a big part of what you are paying us for when you sell your share instead of starting the Texas probate process yourself.
Probate, affidavit of heirship, or selling your share: side by side
Here is how the three roads looked on our own deals. It is not legal advice, and your family can be different.
| Probate | Affidavit of heirship | Selling your share to us | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | The court road. A judge signs off on who handles the estate and who gets the house. | A sworn family tree, signed in front of a notary with two witnesses who knew the family, and recorded at the county. | You sell your piece of the house to us, and the rest becomes our job. |
| Who does the work | The family, and whoever they hire. | On our deals, the outside attorneys and paralegals we work with draft it. The family gives names, dates, and witnesses. | We do. Title, affidavit, deeds, notary, recording. You sign. |
| Does everyone have to agree | Varies. | Varies. | No. We buy individual shares even if not everyone agrees. |
| How long it took on our deals | Varies. When it was already done, like Woodbranch, the sale was quick. | Varies. Mostly depends on finding witnesses and old dates. | Varies. It moves as fast as you sign. |
| Cost to the family | Varies. The family pays. | Varies if you do it yourself. Nothing on our deals. | Nothing out of pocket. |
| When it did not work | When nobody ever started it. A will nobody took to court does not help much. | When the title company wants a judge. | When we cannot find a clear path to title. Some old land never gets a clear path. |
What this means for you
- The Texas probate process is one road to get a house out of a dead relative’s name. On our deals, most families never took it.
- If probate is already done and the house is in your name, say so on the first call. It is the easiest kind of deal there is.
- A will that never went through the Texas probate process did not decide who owned the house on our deals. If the will matters to you, talk to a probate attorney soon.
- If the house is in a trust, find the trust document first. On our deals, the trustee is who signed.
- You do not need the whole family on board to sell your piece. Here is how to sell your share of an inherited house in Texas.
- If a title company says it wants a judge, that is not the end. It is slower, and once you sell to us, it is our problem.
The short version
- The Texas probate process is the court road. A judge signs off on who gets the house.
- Most inherited houses we buy never went through probate. An affidavit of heirship did the job.
- Woodbranch had probate done and the house in his name. It was easy.
- A will nobody took to court does not decide much. The family tree does.
- Porter had a trust. The trustee signed. No probate, no affidavit.
- When a title company sends a house toward a judge, we are the ones who handle it.
- Liens and violations become ours once you sell. Property taxes and IRS liens get paid, not negotiated.
If you would rather sell the whole place than just your piece, here is how we buy inherited houses for cash in Texas.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to go through probate to sell my share of an inherited house?
On our deals, no. Most of the shares we buy come from families who never went through the Texas probate process. We use an affidavit of heirship and buy each heir’s share on its own.
Does recording a will at the county count as probate?
Not on our deals. Cath, the paralegal we work with, put it simply. Recording is paperwork, and probate is what gives a will its power. A recorded will that never went to court did not decide anything for the title company.
How do I know if probate was already done?
Look up the house on your county appraisal district site. If the owner name is yours, or the deed came from an executor, probate may already be behind you. If it still shows the person who passed away, the Texas probate process probably never happened. We run a title search on every deal, and it shows us either way.
What if my relative lived out of state?
On land outside Pearland, the husband who passed had a Florida address. Before I bought from his widow, I asked whether there was a probate or a will in Florida, because that could change who owned what. The title company still wanted his paperwork and an affidavit from people who knew the family. The widow signed, and that deal closed.
Should I hire a probate attorney?
If you want the will to count, or you want to take the house through the Texas probate process yourself, yes. That is their job, not mine. If you sell your share to us instead, the outside attorneys and paralegals we work with handle the paperwork, and we pay for it.
What if the title company wants a judge after I already signed?
Then it becomes our problem. When the title company asks for a judge after the heir already signed, we take it from there. You do not have to understand the Texas probate process for us to handle that part.
If the house is still in a dead relative’s name, or probate is done and you just want it gone, call or text me at 936-380-6384, or fill out the form. Tell me the address and who passed away. Figuring out which road your family is on is our job.
Find out what your share is worth
No cost and no obligation. Tell us the address and the best number to reach you, and someone from my team will call you.
"*" indicates required fields
About the author
Raul Bolufe has bought and sold real estate since 2012, closed more than 800 deals, and paid more than 100 heirs for their share of inherited property across Texas and Florida. He hosts the Flipping Miami Podcast. More at raulbolufe.com.
Read next
- How to Sell Your Share of an Inherited House in Texas, Even If the Other Heirs Won’t
- How to Sell an Inherited House Without Probate in Texas
- Granddad Bought Two Lots on a Contract for Deed. The Inherited Land Never Made It to Their Name.