How to Complete a Transfer on Death Deed in Texas

To complete a transfer on death deed in Texas, you must do three things: sign a deed with the formalities of a recordable deed, state in the deed that the property passes to your beneficiary at your death, and record the deed in the county where the property sits before you die. All three come from Section 114.055 of the Texas Estates Code. Miss one, and the deed does nothing.

What Does a Transfer on Death Deed Do in Texas?

A transfer on death deed is a document you record to name one or more people who will get your Texas real estate when you die. This happens automatically, without the property going through your will. Section 114.051 of the Texas Estates Code authorizes that transfer, effective at the owner’s death.

Making one takes the same legal capacity you would need to sign a contract. Section 114.054 of the Texas Estates Code also bars creating one through a power of attorney, so an agent cannot sign one on your behalf.

The Three Requirements for a Complete Deed

A Texas transfer on death deed is only complete if it meets three requirements:

• Deed formalities: List your name and your beneficiary’s name, and copy the property description exactly as it appears in the recorded deed. Sign in front of a notary.
• The at-death statement: The deed must clearly state that the transfer happens when you die. A deed written as a present gift is treated as a gift made now, not at death.
• Recording before death: The signed deed must reach the county clerk while you are still alive.

A form is just a starting point. Check any form you use against these three requirements before you sign it, since a form that leaves one out produces a deed that does nothing.

Where and When Must a Transfer on Death Deed Be Recorded?

Recording means the county clerk adds your deed to the public property records for that county. You have to file in the county where the property sits, and the clerk has to receive the deed while you are alive.

A deed that is signed and notarized but never recorded before death transfers nothing. The property passes under the owner’s will instead, or under Texas’s intestacy rules if there is no will, the default rules that decide who inherits when someone dies without a will, and the family is left to learn how probate works in Texas the hard way.

If the property sits in more than one county, you need to record the deed in each one. Expect the clerk to charge a fee for every page recorded.

What Does a Deed Change — and Not Change — While You’re Still Alive?

A recorded transfer on death deed leaves your ownership rights untouched during your lifetime. You can still sell, mortgage, or give away the property, and your beneficiary gets no interest in it at all until you die.

Section 114.101 of the Texas Estates Code spells out what stays the same while you live:

• You keep the right to sell or encumber the property, and a buyer’s rights hold even if the buyer knows about the deed.
• Your homestead rights and tax exemptions stay in place, and your beneficiary’s creditors cannot reach the property.
• Your own creditors keep the rights they already had, and the deed does not trigger a due-on-sale clause or affect public-assistance eligibility.

How Can I Cancel or Change a Transfer on Death Deed in Texas?

Undoing the deed takes three steps: sign a later transfer on death deed or an instrument of revocation, have it notarized after the original deed, and record it before your death in the same county where the first one was recorded. These three steps come from Section 114.057 of the Texas Estates Code.

A will cannot revoke or override a transfer on death deed. Pairing the deed with an estate plan that accounts for the deed avoids that surprise.

Three more rules decide when a deed is undone: divorce alone is not enough, since the judgment only revokes the deed as to a former spouse if notice of it is recorded before the owner’s death; one joint owner cannot undo another’s share, since a deed by joint owners with right of survivorship falls only if all of them revoke it; and selling the property works too, since a conveyance recorded before the owner’s death voids the deed as to that buyer.

What Happens to the Property When the Owner Dies?

If your beneficiary outlives you by at least 120 hours, or five days, your interest in the property passes to them under the deed. A beneficiary who does not live that long takes nothing themselves, but their share does not simply disappear: Texas’s anti-lapse rule sends it on to that beneficiary’s own descendants, the same way it would if the deed were a gift left in a will.

Section 114.103 of the Texas Estates Code supplies three more defaults that surprise families:

• Two or more beneficiaries take equal, undivided shares with no right of survivorship between them.
• If the owner held the property jointly with right of survivorship, the surviving joint owner takes the property instead, and the deed only takes effect once the last joint owner dies.
• The property passes with no warranty of title, even if the deed says otherwise, so a lien or a boundary problem travels with the house.

A lapsed share, or any other unresolved question about who actually owns the property afterward, sends the family back to other options for transferring a home after a death.

Can I Fix a Transfer on Death Deed After the Owner Has Died?

No. A transfer on death deed either meets every requirement in Chapter 114 of the Texas Estates Code or it does nothing at all, and once the owner has died, a deed that missed a requirement can no longer be corrected.

That is why a careful review while the owner is still alive matters as much as it does, since a deed that never reached the clerk, a property description copied from the wrong document, a will written to override the deed, or an unintended beneficiary split cannot be fixed later.

Have Your Deed Reviewed Before You File It

Our attorney Cory Krueger and our team at Hensley & Krueger, PLLC read a proposed deed against the recorded deed and the wider estate plan before it is filed.

We proudly serve Houston & all throughout Texas.

Hensley & Krueger, PLLC

5615 Kirby Dr Suite 720,
Houston, TX 77005, United States
Phone: (713) 850 9700

Our firm is located near you. We have an office in Houston.

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