Protecting What’s Yours: Improving Heir and Property Rights Laws in Texas

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Texas has some of the strongest property rights protections in the nation. Our Constitution, our Family Code, and our Estates Code all reflect a deeply held belief: what a man or woman builds in their lifetime should pass to those they love, according to their own wishes — not according to the whims of a distant government or the machinations of estranged relatives with lawyers and an agenda.

And yet, the system has gaps. Some are legal. Some are structural. Some are the product of years of underfunding and poor oversight — particularly here in Dallas County, where probate courts have operated with dramatically fewer resources than comparable Texas counties, leaving grieving families exposed to delays, executor misconduct, and, in documented cases, judicial conduct that had to be reviewed by state appeals courts.

More troubling still: when a bad actor contests a will before a court admits it, Texas law currently allows the estate to be frozen in administrative limbo — sometimes for years — while court-appointed attorneys and executors run up fees paid directly from the estate assets that rightfully belong to the heirs. This is not a hypothetical. It is happening to families in Dallas County today.

This article examines the full landscape: what the law provides, where it falls short, what heirs can do right now, and what we must do at the Texas Legislature to close the gaps. As a candidate for Texas House District 109, I believe protecting family wealth, honoring final wishes, and holding court officers accountable to the heirs they serve is not a legal nicety — it is a moral obligation rooted in the founding values of this state.

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THE FOUNDATION — TEXAS PROPERTY RIGHTS PHILOSOPHY

Texas is grounded in the principle that property rights are among the most sacred individual rights a free people can possess. Our founders understood that a government which can strip you of your property — through taxation, confiscation, redistribution, or manipulation of inheritance — is a government that does not truly respect your liberty.

This belief is embedded throughout our law:

Texas Constitution, Article XVI, §§ 50–52 — Establishes homestead protections, some of the most robust in the United States, protecting the family home from forced sale by most creditors.
Texas Estates Code (Title 2) — Governs how property passes at death, establishing a detailed hierarchy for both testate (with a will) and intestate (without a will) succession.
Texas Property Code, Chapter 23A — The Uniform Partition of Heirs' Property Act, adopted in 2017, protects co-owners of inherited family property from forced buyouts at below-market prices.
Texas Constitution Amendment (2025 — Prop. 8 passed) — Texas voters approved a constitutional prohibition on any state estate tax, inheritance tax, or gift tax, permanently cementing our tax-friendly stance toward wealth transfer.

The philosophy is clear. The execution, however, has gaps — and those gaps cost Texas families their inheritance every year.

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WILLS AND TESTAMENTARY RIGHTS — WHAT THE LAW PROVIDES

What Makes a Valid Texas Will

Under the Texas Estates Code §§ 251.001–251.009, a written will must be:

Signed by the testator (or by another person at the testator's direction)
Attested by two credible witnesses who are at least 14 years old
Or, alternatively, entirely handwritten and signed by the testator (a "holographic will")

Texas also recognizes oral wills made by persons in last sickness under very narrow conditions (Tex. Est. Code § 251.001 et seq.), though these are rarely relied upon in practice.

Probating a Will — The Four-Year Limit

A critical protection — and a deadline most Texans do not know about — is found at Texas Estates Code § 256.003: a will must be offered for probate within four years of the testator's death. Miss that window and the will may be denied probate, leaving the estate to pass under intestate succession instead of honoring the decedent's wishes. This four-year cliff is a harm trap for unsuspecting families.

Testate vs. Intestate — The Fundamental Fork

When someone dies testate (with a valid will), the probate court validates the will and appoints the named executor to carry out the decedent's instructions. The court follows the wishes expressed in the will, provided the document is legally valid.

When someone dies intestate (without a valid will), the Texas Estates Code, Chapter 201 takes over, establishing a fixed hierarchy of heirs. The law decides — not the deceased.

No-Contest (In Terrorem) Clauses

Texas law under Estates Code § 254.005 permits testators to include a no-contest clause (also called an in terrorem clause): a provision stating that any beneficiary who challenges the will forfeits their inheritance. These clauses are enforceable in Texas unless the person contesting the will can prove by a preponderance of the evidence that (1) just cause existed for the action and (2) the action was brought in good faith.

Courts interpret no-contest clauses narrowly, and they apply only to named beneficiaries — not to omitted heirs or third parties. This is an important distinction when an estranged family member attempts to challenge a will from the outside.

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INTESTATE SUCCESSION — DYING WITHOUT A WILL

The Core Rules

The Texas Estates Code, Chapter 201 governs intestate succession. It is one of the most complex areas of Texas probate law because the outcome differs significantly based on whether the property is community property or separate property, and based on which family members survive the decedent.

Key rules for a married person who dies without a will:

Community property: The surviving spouse inherits 100% of the deceased spouse's share of community property only if the deceased had no children or all children are also the surviving spouse's children. If the deceased had children from another relationship, the children inherit the deceased's share of community property.
Separate real property: The surviving spouse receives a one-third life estate interest; the children receive the remaining two-thirds in fee simple divided equally.
Separate personal property: The surviving spouse receives one-third outright; children divide the remaining two-thirds.

Key rules for a single person (no spouse) who dies without a will:

Children (biological and legally adopted) inherit all property in equal shares.
If no children: property passes to parents.
If no parents: to siblings and descendants of deceased siblings.
If no siblings: estate splits equally between maternal and paternal kindred.
If no heirs exist: the estate escheats to the State of Texas.

The Estranged Spouse Problem in Intestate Cases

A particularly dangerous gap: if a married person is estranged from their spouse — separated for years, relationship broken — but has never legally divorced and dies without a will, the estranged spouse is treated as a full legal heir under Texas intestacy law. The estrangement has no legal effect on the inheritance rights of an undivided spouse. The only remedies are formal divorce, a postnuptial agreement, or a properly executed will and trust that leaves no room for intestate claims.

Affidavit of Heirship

When someone dies without a will and the estate's assets are straightforward (particularly real estate), heirs may use an Affidavit of Heirship — a sworn statement filed in the deed records identifying the deceased's heirs — to establish title without a full probate proceeding. The 2025 legislative update (89th Session) clarified when such affidavits can replace live testimony, reducing court burden for qualifying estates.

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TRUSTS — THE STRONGEST SHIELD FOR HEIRS

Why Trusts Are Superior for Heir Protection

A properly drafted revocable living trust is often the most effective tool available to Texas families seeking to protect their wealth and honor their final wishes. Assets held in a trust:

Bypass probate entirely, meaning they never go through the public probate court process
Pass directly to named beneficiaries upon the grantor's death
Are not subject to will contests in the same way a will is — trust contests carry a higher legal burden
Remain private — unlike a probated will, which becomes a public document

Under Texas Estates Code § 112.038 (the trust equivalent of the no-contest provision), trusts can include forfeiture clauses to deter bad-faith challenges.

Recent Trust Law Updates (2025 — 89th Legislature)

The 89th Texas Legislature passed several important trust-related updates effective September 1, 2025:

Homestead in Revocable Trusts: Clarified that homesteads held in revocable living trusts must contain specific language to preserve both the property tax exemption AND the creditor protection homestead exemption — these differ slightly and both must be addressed.
Purpose Trusts: Texas eliminated the requirement that a non-charitable trust have an ascertainable beneficiary, allowing trusts for business continuity, family compounds, or collections — provided a trust enforcer is named.
Rule Against Perpetuities Clarification: Trusts may now last up to 300 years, providing long-term generational wealth planning certainty.
Trust Accounting Reform (FAILED): A bill that would have simplified trust accounting for identical beneficiary/distribution situations failed to pass. Expect this issue in the 2027 session.
Self-Settled Asset Protection Trusts (FAILED): Texas again declined to authorize self-settled asset protection trusts, reflecting ongoing concerns about community property rights and creditor enforcement.

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HOMESTEAD RIGHTS AND FAMILY PROPERTY PROTECTIONS

Constitutional Homestead Rights

Article XVI, Section 51 of the Texas Constitution restricts who may receive homestead property upon the death of an owner to the surviving spouse and minor children. Section 52 goes further: the homestead "shall not be partitioned among the heirs of the deceased during the lifetime of the surviving husband or wife, or so long as the survivor may elect to use or occupy the same as a homestead."

In plain terms: a surviving spouse cannot be forced to leave the family home, even if the deceased left the home to someone else in their will. This right persists for the survivor's lifetime (or until they voluntarily relinquish it) and applies whether the home was community property or the deceased's separate property.

Family Allowances and Exempt Property

Even if a testator attempts to fully disinherit their spouse or minor children, Texas law provides mandatory protections that survive the will:

Homestead allowance: If no homestead exists, the court may award up to $45,000 in lieu of homestead (Tex. Est. Code § 353.053).
Exempt personal property allowance: Up to $30,000 for specific items (home furnishings, vehicles, two firearms, clothes, certain animals, etc.).
Family allowance: A one-year maintenance allowance for the surviving spouse, minor children, and adult incapacitated children (Tex. Est. Code § 353.102).

Urban vs. Rural Homestead Size

Urban homestead: Up to 10 acres
Rural family homestead: Up to 200 acres
Rural single-person homestead: Up to 100 acres

The Uniform Partition of Heirs' Property Act (UPHPA)

Adopted in Texas in 2017 and codified at Texas Property Code, Chapter 23A, the UPHPA was designed to address a long-documented problem: when family property is inherited by multiple co-owners, outside investors or aggressive co-owners could force a "partition sale" — a court-ordered sale of the entire property — often at below-market prices.

The UPHPA applies when:

Co-owners are related (by blood, marriage, adoption, or law)
At least one co-owner inherited their interest from a relative
20% or more of the property interests are held by related co-tenants
No recorded agreement governs the partition

Under the UPHPA: the court must commission an independent appraisal, all heirs have a right of first refusal to buy out the initiating co-owner's share, physical division is preferred over sale, and any required sale must be an open-market sale supervised by the court.

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ESTRANGED SPOUSES AND DISINHERITED CHILDREN — WHAT THE LAW ALLOWS

Can You Disinherit Your Spouse?

Partially, yes — but not completely. Because Texas is a community property state under Texas Family Code § 3.002, property acquired during marriage is jointly owned by both spouses. Upon death, the surviving spouse automatically retains their one-half of community property — this does not pass through the will or estate at all.

A testator can disinherit a spouse from:

The testator's separate property
The testator's half of community property

A testator cannot deprive the surviving spouse of:

The surviving spouse's own half of community property (never belonged to the decedent)
Homestead rights (constitutional)
Exempt property and family allowances (statutory)

The estranged spouse risk: There is no mechanism in Texas law for an estranged (but not divorced) spouse to be automatically barred from inheriting absent a valid will, postnuptial agreement, or divorce. If none of those instruments exist and the person dies intestate, the estranged spouse inherits as if the marriage were intact.

Can You Disinherit Your Children?

Yes — for adult children. Texas law does not require a parent to leave anything to an adult child. The intent to disinherit must be clearly and explicitly stated in the will.

No — for pretermitted children. Under Texas Estates Code § 255.051, a child born or adopted after the will was executed who was not included in or provided for in the will is a "pretermitted child" entitled to an intestate share of the estate, unless the will explicitly disinherits future-born children.

The better strategy to protect intended heirs against interference from disinherited parties is a trust combined with a no-contest clause, which significantly raises the legal and financial bar for any challenge.

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THE POST-DEATH GAP — A CRITICAL HOLE IN HEIR PROTECTION

The "Power Failure" Problem

One of the most significant and underappreciated vulnerabilities in Texas probate law is what legal scholars have called the "post-death gap" — the period between a person's death and the formal appointment of a personal representative by the probate court.

As documented in a Texas A&M Law Review analysis ((Middleton, 2013, "Power Failure: How the Texas Probate Code Leaves a Gap in the Ability to Preserve Estates After Death")), no person has immediate legal authority to act on behalf of the estate the moment a person dies. Rights vest immediately under law, but legal power to exercise those rights does not.

During this gap:

Business assets may deteriorate or contracts may lapse
Other family members may convert estate assets before administration begins
Perishable property may be lost
Insurance coverage may lapse
Real estate transactions may fall through

Temporary Administration — An Imperfect Solution

Texas law provides for a temporary administrator under Texas Estates Code § 351.001 et seq. to address emergency preservation needs. However, obtaining temporary administration requires filing a written application, demonstrating "immediate necessity" to the court, obtaining a court order, and posting bond within three business days. Each of these steps takes time — and in a true emergency, days may be too slow.

The Reform Need

Proposed reforms include:

Allow testators to name a preferred temporary estate preservationist in the will who would be recognized immediately without a full court application
Authorize preservation powers to vest immediately upon a court order and bond posting, eliminating the clerk's letter delay
Streamline the application process for emergency situations where documented conversion of assets is occurring

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EXECUTOR MISCONDUCT — WHAT HEIRS CAN DO

The Fiduciary Duty

An executor appointed by a Texas probate court owes a fiduciary duty to the estate and all its beneficiaries. That duty requires the executor to act honestly, transparently, and in the best interest of the estate — not their own.

What Executors Cannot Legally Do

Under Texas law, an executor:

Cannot steal or misappropriate estate assets — transferring estate funds to personal accounts or keeping estate property
Cannot ignore beneficiaries — executors must keep heirs reasonably informed, file required inventories, and respond to legitimate information requests
Cannot unreasonably delay probate — sitting on an estate for years without progress can justify court intervention
Cannot favor one heir over another — the will governs; personal preferences do not
Cannot sell property below fair market value to themselves, friends, or relatives (self-dealing)
Cannot modify or reinterpret the will — only a court can resolve ambiguities
Cannot pay themselves excessive fees
Cannot hide estate assets

Remedies Available to Heirs

If an executor is breaching their duties, Texas heirs can:

Request a formal accounting — Texas law entitles beneficiaries to demand an accounting of estate finances
File a motion to compel — courts can order executors to file missing documents or take specific actions
Seek removal of the executor — under Tex. Est. Code § 404.003
Recover misused assets — courts can order repayment, reduce executor compensation, and impose personal liability
In extreme cases: executor misconduct can result in criminal charges

The Independent vs. Dependent Administration Problem

Independent administration — The executor acts largely without court oversight. Faster and cheaper, but provides fewer protections for heirs when the executor is untrustworthy.

Dependent administration — Every significant action requires court approval. More protective, but substantially slower and more expensive.

The gap: Texas favors independent administration, which means heirs must actively police executor behavior themselves. The law creates the rights, but heirs must know them and exercise them. Many do not.

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HEIRS' STANDING TO SUE — EXECUTORS, JUDGES, AND COURT-APPOINTED ATTORNEYS

This is perhaps the most underutilized set of rights available to Texas heirs. The law provides real teeth — but heirs must know these rights exist and exercise them affirmatively. The system does not enforce them automatically.

Suing a Court-Appointed Executor

Any "interested person" — defined in Texas Estates Code § 22.018 to include heirs and beneficiaries — has standing to petition the probate court for an executor's removal under Tex. Est. Code § 404.003, and simultaneously to pursue a personal surcharge action against the executor for breach of fiduciary duty.

A court finding breach allows it to:

Remove the executor immediately
Order the executor to personally repay all losses to the estate — including property sold below market value, self-dealing profits, unauthorized fees, and excessive compensation
Charge the bond surety (the insurance company backing the executor's bond) for covered damages
Award the heirs their attorney's fees incurred in bringing the action — meaning the legal cost of fighting a bad executor can be recovered from that executor

The 5% monthly damage penalty: Under Tex. Est. Code § 355.113, when a court orders a payment from an estate and the executor refuses to pay on demand with estate funds available, the court can enter judgment including not just the amount owed but 5% per month in damages for every month of willful non-payment. This compounding penalty is a powerful tool against bad actors who stall.

The willful neglect bond liability: Under Tex. Est. Code § 351.054(b), if an executor willfully fails to use ordinary diligence — for example, failing to collect debts owed to the estate or failing to protect estate assets — both the executor and the sureties on their bond are personally liable to any interested person for all resulting loss. The bond insurance company itself can be sued alongside the executor.

The judicial discharge mechanism: Under Tex. Est. Code § 405.003, when a court issues a declaratory judgment discharging an independent executor, the executor must personally repay any fees or expenses the court does not approve as proper estate charges. This gives heirs a path to force a full accounting at case close and claw back improperly taken fees.

Suing a Probate Judge

This is a provision most Texans — and even many attorneys — do not know exists. Texas Estates Code § 351.354 states explicitly:

"A judge is liable on the judge's bond to those damaged if damage or loss results to an estate administered under orders of a county or probate court from the gross neglect of the judge to use reasonable diligence in the performance of the judge's duty under this subchapter."

This means heirs have a statutory cause of action against a probate judge's bond when gross judicial neglect causes demonstrable loss to an estate. This is not a theoretical right — it is written into the Estates Code.

However, pursuing it faces three major obstacles:

"Gross neglect" is a high legal bar — significantly harder to prove than ordinary negligence, and judicial immunity doctrines can complicate the analysis even when statute creates a bond claim
The bond cap is dangerously low. Senate Bill 387 (89th Legislature, 2025) raised the judge's bond to $500,000 regardless of county size — still a ceiling that is wholly inadequate when multi-million dollar estates are at stake. A judge overseeing a $5 million estate is bonded at only $500,000, meaning gross neglect could cost heirs far more than the bonded coverage can compensate
No automatic mechanism forces judicial accountability before damage occurs — heirs must prove loss after the fact

The gap and the reform needed: The judge's bond amount should be indexed to the aggregate value of estates actively under administration in that court — not a flat legislative figure set once a decade. A probate court handling $50 million in active estate assets should be bonded at a level that actually covers potential gross neglect exposure.

Challenging Court-Appointed Attorney Ad Litem Fees

When an attorney ad litem is appointed by the court — to represent unknown heirs, a ward, or an estate — their compensation must be "reasonable" and supported by competent evidence: an itemized voucher showing actual hours worked and specific services rendered (required by Tex. Est. Code § 53.104 and Texas Supreme Court rules).

Heirs have the right to:

Object to the fee request before the court approves it
Challenge the fee award on appeal — the fee order is independently appealable via a motion to sever, and appeals courts independently review whether the fee was reasonable. When no competent evidence supports the amount awarded, courts have held it an abuse of discretion
Argue that a bad-faith contestant — not the estate — should pay the ad litem costs. Under Tex. Est. Code § 1155.151, if any party in a proceeding acted in bad faith or without just cause, the court can order that party — rather than the estate — to pay all court-appointed personnel costs, including ad litem fees. This is a powerful tool: if an estranged spouse or disinherited relative brought a baseless contest that triggered years of litigation and hundreds of thousands in ad litem fees, those costs can be shifted entirely to them

The gaps that remain:

No statutory cap on ad litem fees as a percentage of estate value (unlike executor fees, which carry the 5% rule)
No mandatory itemized disclosure to heirs before fees are paid from the estate — the voucher goes to the court, not to heirs
No retrospective clawback mechanism when fees have already been paid out and are later found to be excessive — recovery at that point requires a separate civil action for unjust enrichment or fraud

The Self-Dealing Network Problem — Attorney, Title Company, Realtor

A documented pattern in contested probate cases involves court-appointed attorneys or executors who control the assets being sold and simultaneously profit from those sales through affiliated businesses — a title company, a real estate firm, or a referral network of realtors who kick back fees or business.

This is illegal under multiple provisions of existing law:

Self-dealing doctrine: A court-appointed fiduciary who directs estate property to their own affiliated title company, or earns commissions or referral fees from sales they control as executor, is engaging in textbook breach of fiduciary duty — grounds for removal and surcharge
Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 1.08: An attorney cannot enter into a business transaction with a client or acquire a proprietary interest in the subject matter of litigation without full written disclosure and consent from a disinterested attorney
TREC Rules: Real estate licensees who participate in a scheme to direct estate sales to affiliated entities in exchange for referral fees face TREC disciplinary action and potential criminal exposure under Texas Penal Code fraud provisions

The enforcement gap: None of these violations are self-enforcing. They require a victim with resources to file complaints with the State Bar of Texas, TREC, and/or pursue civil litigation simultaneously. Most heirs fighting a multi-year probate battle are financially exhausted by the time the pattern becomes clear — and the attorney being sued can use estate funds to pay their own defense attorneys while the heirs pay out of pocket.

The reform that would close this: Any court-appointed fiduciary — executor, ad litem, receiver, or temporary administrator — who has a business interest in any entity that would derive income from estate transactions must be required to:

Disclose that interest in writing to the court and all heirs within 10 days of appointment
Obtain the court's affirmative written approval before any estate transaction goes through an affiliated entity
Be automatically disqualified from court appointment in any estate where their affiliated business would benefit financially from estate asset transactions

This is a targeted statutory addition to the Estates Code that would prevent the most common form of probate court corruption without requiring broad judicial reform.

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THE "WILL FIRST" REFORM — STOPPING THE WEAPONIZED CONTEST

How the System Gets Exploited

There is a pattern of abuse in Texas probate that is devastating families — and the law as currently written enables it. It works like this:

A man dies with a valid, properly executed will and trust. His named executor has predeceased him, and he was in the process of naming a replacement at the time of his death. A person excluded from the will — an estranged spouse who was never included, an adult child who was intentionally disinherited — files a pre-admission will contest before the court has formally accepted the will into probate.

That filing freezes everything. The court cannot issue letters testamentary to the deceased's chosen executor while the contest is pending. The court appoints a temporary administrator — a court-chosen stranger, not the family's choice — who now has legal authority over the estate. That administrator's attorney fees are paid from the estate. Court-appointed attorney ad litems are brought in and paid from the estate. And the properties that the deceased wanted to go to his children? They can be sold — by the court-appointed administrator — to pay those fees. The contest drags on for years. By the time the family prevails, a substantial portion of the estate has been consumed.

This is not hypothetical. It is the documented experience of constituents in Dallas County and across Texas today.

What the Law Currently Says

When a will is filed for probate and a contest is filed before the court admits it, Texas law under Tex. Est. Code § 256.003 et seq. treats the admission hearing and the contest hearing as effectively the same proceeding — everything stops until the contest is resolved.

Under Tex. Est. Code § 22.018, a legally married spouse — even one estranged for years — is an "interested person" with statutory standing to file a pre-admission contest. The estrangement has no bearing on standing. The spouse does not need to prove the will is invalid to file the contest and trigger the freeze; the filing itself is sufficient.

Under Tex. Est. Code § 403.001, a probate court may issue limited letters testamentary during a contest — but this is discretionary, not mandatory. Courts are often reluctant to do so, citing the pending challenge. The result is an asset freeze at the estate's most vulnerable moment.

Burden shift problem: Before admission, the proponent of the will must prove validity at the combined hearing. After admission, the burden shifts entirely to the contestant to prove invalidity by a preponderance of the evidence. Filing a pre-admission contest weaponizes this burden shift — the contesting party gets the estate frozen while forcing the family to prove validity without ever having to make a real case of their own.

Texas Supreme Court precedent established in Logan v. Thomason requires that a contestant demonstrate pecuniary interest as a condition of standing — but courts are not currently required to conduct a threshold standing hearing rapidly. A contestant can file a bare petition and rely on the court's standard scheduling calendar to delay the threshold ruling for months.

The "Will First" Reform

The legislative solution is a mandatory provisional admission rule:

When a will is facially valid — self-proved, properly executed, notarized — the probate court must provisionally admit it within 30 to 60 days of filing and immediately issue limited letters testamentary to the named executor (or the next named successor if the primary executor cannot serve) for the purpose of estate preservation and administration.

A contestant may still file their contest — and that contest runs on a parallel track. The contestant's claims are fully preserved. They can still win. But filing a contest does not freeze the estate or strip the family of the executor their loved one chose.

If the contest ultimately succeeds, the court unwinds distributions that should not have been made. The law already has mechanisms for this. What it lacks is the protection in the other direction: ensuring that a bad-faith filer cannot use the probate process as a weapon to drain the estate before the family ever sees a dollar.

Required companion reforms:

Mandatory successor executor rule: When the named executor cannot serve (by death, incapacity, or refusal), the court must look first to the succession list in the will itself before appointing a court-selected stranger. Most wills name successor executors. The law should require the court to exhaust all named successors — and require the filing party to demonstrate that all successors are unavailable or disqualified — before a court-appointed administrator takes control of an estate
Mandatory threshold standing hearing within 30 days: When a pre-admission contest is filed, the court must hold a standing proof hearing within 30 calendar days. The contestant must come forward with sworn evidence demonstrating actual pecuniary interest that would be affected by the will. A bare assertion is not sufficient. Failure to demonstrate standing at this threshold hearing results in dismissal of the contest with prejudice, subject to appeal
Mandatory contestant bond: Any party seeking a pre-admission contest that would have the effect of freezing estate assets must post a bond proportional to the estate's appraised value — sufficient to compensate the heirs for losses caused by the delay if the contest ultimately fails. This requirement already exists in analogous forms in Texas civil litigation (e.g., temporary injunction bond requirements under TRCP Rule 684). Applying the same principle to probate contests would immediately deter frivolous filings while leaving legitimate contests fully available
Bad-faith contestant fee shifting: When a will contest is dismissed or fails at trial and the court finds the contest was filed without just cause or in bad faith, the court should be required — not merely permitted — to order the contestant to pay all attorney's fees, ad litem fees, court costs, and estate losses attributable to the contest period. The current "may" language in the Estates Code should be changed to "shall" for cases where bad faith is found

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VENUE REFORM — REMOVING CASES FROM CORRUPTED LOCAL NETWORKS

The Problem: Removing One Judge Is Not Enough

When a probate judge is recused — whether voluntarily or by court order — Texas law under Government Code § 25.002201 requires the presiding judge of the administrative judicial region to assign a replacement within 15 days. The replacement must be a statutory probate court judge or a former/retired statutory probate court judge.

This mechanism removes the individual judge. It does not remove the network.

In counties like Dallas, where the same small group of attorneys and court appointees have practiced before the same judges for years or decades, recusing one judge and replacing them with another statutory probate judge often means the incoming judge knows the same attorneys, has worked alongside the same ad litems, and operates within the same professional community. The local network — the attorneys who receive court appointments, the title companies who process estate sales, the realtors who list estate properties — remains intact.

What Current Law Provides

For counties without a statutory probate court (smaller counties), Tex. Est. Code § 32.004 already allows a county court judge to transfer a contested matter to a county court at law in a different location. This inter-court transfer mechanism exists — but Dallas County has statutory probate courts, so this provision does not automatically apply there.

The recusal rules under Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 18b require a judge to recuse when their impartiality might reasonably be questioned, when they have personal bias concerning a party, or when they have a financial interest in the outcome. These standards apply — but they apply to the individual judge's disqualifying relationship, not to the structural problem of a closed local attorney network.

The 2007 amendment to Gov't Code § 25.00255 already made a step in the right direction: it removed the authority of the presiding statutory probate judge to appoint their own replacement, requiring instead that the administrative judicial region's presiding judge make the assignment. A 2011 bill (HB 2372) tried to reverse this and return appointment authority to the local presiding judge — it did not pass, specifically due to concerns about insider appointments.

The Reform: Systemic Bias Transfer to an Adjacent County

There is currently no mechanism allowing heirs to petition for transfer of an entire contested estate proceeding outside the originating county when the concern is not one judge's conflict, but a pattern of systemic professional relationships between the court-appointed network and the presiding judge.

The reform needed: amend the Government Code and Estates Code to allow any interested party to petition for transfer of a contested probate proceeding to a statutory probate court in an adjacent county when the petitioning party can demonstrate, by sworn affidavit with supporting evidence, any two of the following:

The same attorneys have appeared in a majority of contested cases before the presiding judge within the preceding three years
A court-appointed fiduciary in the proceeding has a current or prior business relationship with the judge, the judge's former law firm, or any attorney of record in the same proceeding
A court-appointed fiduciary has a financial interest — through ownership of or referral relationship with a title company, real estate firm, or appraisal firm — in transactions being conducted by the estate
Prior recusal motions have been filed against the same judge in proceedings involving any of the same attorneys currently of record

The standard does not require proof of actual corruption — only the appearance of systemic bias, which is already prohibited under Canon 3 of the Texas Code of Judicial Conduct. Judges are already required to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. The reform simply gives heirs a procedural mechanism to enforce that obligation when the concern is structural rather than individual.

The Adjacent-County Transfer Process

Existing venue doctrine matters here. In counties without a statutory probate court, Estates Code §§ 32.003 and 32.004 already show the Legislature's accepted model: when a probate matter becomes contested, the case or contested matter may be transferred to another court with probate jurisdiction, and that receiving court may hear it as if originally filed there. That existing doctrine supports a transfer model grounded in contest and impartial adjudication, rather than attempting to reinvent venue from scratch.

The petition for transfer should therefore be filed with the presiding judge of the administrative judicial region — not the local probate court whose venue is being challenged, which would create an obvious conflict. The administrative regional presiding judge would:

Review the sworn petition and evidence
Allow the opposing party 10 days to respond
Issue a ruling within 30 days of the petition
If transfer is granted, assign the matter to a statutory probate court in an adjacent county using the same outside-local-network logic already reflected in the recusal assignment framework under Government Code §§ 25.002201 and 25.00255

The receiving court would take the contested matter — or, where necessary for effective relief, the entire proceeding — with full jurisdiction to hear it as if originally filed there, consistent with the transfer logic already embedded in Chapter 32. This is the cleanest way to stay aligned with established Texas venue doctrine while still creating a meaningful escape valve for heirs trapped in a compromised local network.

Mandatory Public Disclosure of Court Appointment Logs

A companion reform that does not require transfer but creates accountability in the home county: require quarterly public disclosure of all court-appointed fiduciary appointments by probate court — identifying by name every attorney ad litem, guardian ad litem, temporary administrator, receiver, and appraiser appointed by each court and the estate or proceeding in which they were appointed.

This data should be publicly available on the county's website, searchable by attorney name and court. A pattern of the same attorneys receiving repeated appointments from the same judge — which may be entirely appropriate, or may reflect favoritism — would be visible to heirs, advocacy organizations, and legislators without requiring anyone to file a lawsuit to discover it.

This type of transparency is already standard in many federal courts for receiver and trustee appointments. There is no legitimate reason it should not apply to Texas statutory probate courts.

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THE 2027 SESSION REFORMS — AUTOMATIC ESCALATION, PUBLIC REPORTING, AND DIRECT DISCLOSURE

Constituent feedback gathered ahead of the 90th Legislature (2027) identified three additional, closely related vulnerabilities that are not fully addressed by the reforms in Sections 9 through 12: the absence of an automatic, judge-independent trigger when a dependent administrator misses a mandatory filing deadline; the concentration of court-connected real estate listings among a small circle of favored professionals; and the lack of any requirement that heirs receive closing documents directly, rather than through the administrator whose conduct is often the subject of dispute. Each of these gaps was independently verified against current Texas statute before being incorporated into this article and the accompanying bill.

The Judicial Dead-End — Automatic Escalation on Missed Filings

Dependent administrators already carry hard statutory filing deadlines. Estates Code Chapter 309 requires an inventory, appraisement, and list of claims within 90 days of qualification, with noncompliance triggering a show-cause order and a fine of up to $1,000 (Denton County, n.d.). Chapter 359, Subchapter B requires a sworn annual account, which the clerk must note on the judge's docket and which the court must consider no earlier than 10 days after filing ((Justia, 2024a)). For real property sales, Section 356.551 already requires a sworn Report of Sale within 30 days of a successful bid or contract ((Justia, 2024b)).

What current law does not provide is an automatic consequence when these deadlines are missed. Today, an heir must file a motion in front of the same judge who appointed the administrator — and if that judge has a documented conflict, the heir's only recourse is a recusal motion under Government Code § 25.00255, a mechanism with a demonstrated high failure rate. In Wanda Hudson v. Texas Children's Hospital, the First Court of Appeals held that a recusal motion failing to strictly comply with Rule 18a's particularity and personal-knowledge requirements is waived outright — regardless of the merits of the underlying conflict ((Justia, 2005)). Section 25.00256 compounds the disincentive: a third or subsequent recusal motion against the same judge by the same party can result in the moving party being assessed the opposing side's attorney's fees ((FindLaw, 2024a)). The Peyton case documented in Section 14 — where the Fifth Court of Appeals had to order an entire $100 million Dallas probate matter reopened after an undisclosed judge-attorney relationship surfaced only on appeal — illustrates exactly how costly it is when this kind of conflict is caught too late ((D Magazine, 2018); (State Commission on Judicial Conduct, 2018)).

The reform closes this gap with a bright-line, judge-independent trigger: when an heir files a verified notice that a required annual account or Report of Sale is more than 30 days past due, jurisdiction over the administration automatically transfers to the presiding judge of the administrative judicial region for review — no motion, no hearing before the original judge, and no need to prove bias. This is a narrower, objective companion to the "structural conflict" transfer standard already established in Section 12: that mechanism addresses a pattern of closed-network bias, while this one addresses a single, objectively verifiable filing failure.

The Probate Realtor Concentration Problem — Public Reporting Rather Than a Cap

A companion concern raised by constituents involves the concentration of court-connected real estate listings among a small number of favored agents and brokerages, and the possibility that court-appointed administrators steer estate-property sales to the same repeat professionals rather than seeking competitive, arms-length listings. This concern is well-founded in principle and supported by analogous documented cases, though — after a dedicated research effort — no Texas-specific dataset was located that quantifies listing concentration in Dallas County or any other Texas county, and no state's probate, guardianship, or heirs'-property statute was found to impose a numerical cap on the number of court-connected listings a single real estate professional may hold. This absence of a data-verified baseline is stated plainly and is itself part of the case for reform: if the extent of the problem cannot currently be measured, the correct legislative response is to require that it be measured and made public, not to legislate a numerical limit that cannot yet be justified by evidence.

The closest documented analogue is a Florida guardianship case in which a court-appointed guardian sold a ward's home for more than $100,000 under market value through a private, off-market arrangement with a real estate team from the guardian's own community; a subsequent inspector general investigation found the same guardian had used the same real estate agents in at least two other home sales, though no criminal charges resulted ((Graber & Johnson Law, 2023)). This is not a Texas case and does not involve a decedent's estate, but it demonstrates the exact mechanism — repeat, undisclosed use of the same real estate professionals by a court-appointed fiduciary — that the reporting requirement in this bill is designed to expose before it can cause comparable harm to Texas families. Peer-reviewed economic research independently confirms that brokerage steering is a measurable market distortion: a study of over 650,000 residential listings found that properties offering below-market commissions sold five percent less often and took twelve percent longer to sell, evidence that broker incentive structures materially affect market outcomes for sellers who are not positioned to negotiate at arm's length — a dynamic with obvious relevance to estates administered on behalf of grieving families who are rarely in a position to shop the market themselves ((Barwick, Pathak, & Wong, 2017)).

Texas's existing consumer-protection backstop, the TREC Real Estate Recovery Trust Account, does not solve this problem because it only reimburses heirs after they have already won a civil judgment for fraud or misrepresentation, and payouts are capped at $125,000 per transaction and $250,000 per license holder ((Texas Real Estate Commission, 2025)). It is a remedy for proven fraud after the fact, not a mechanism for exposing concentration before harm occurs. A flat numerical cap on listings — the approach initially proposed by advocates — was considered and set aside for two reasons: no comparable cap exists in any state's law to model or defend, and Texas's Real Estate License Act (Occupations Code Chapter 1101) regulates licensure but has never restricted business volume, meaning a novel volume cap would face an occupational-freedom challenge without empirical grounding to support it (Texas Occupations Code, Chapter 1101, cited in Ballotpedia summary context).

The reform therefore takes a different, constitutionally safer approach: mandatory public reporting. Every court-appointed fiduciary must file a sworn disclosure each time a real estate professional is engaged for a probate listing, including how the professional was selected and their relationship, if any, to the fiduciary, the fiduciary's attorney, or the court. The Office of Court Administration will host this information in a free, searchable, public statewide registry — sortable by county, listing professional, and fiduciary — updated at least quarterly. When a single listing professional crosses ten probate listings in one county within 24 months, a rebuttable presumption of conflict arises, shifting the burden onto the fiduciary and the listing professional to show the engagement was competitively solicited and priced at market rates. This does not prohibit any relationship or cap anyone's business — it simply ensures that the pattern, if one exists, is visible to every heir, journalist, and legislator in Texas, functioning as a transparency-driven deterrent rather than a rigid quota.

Hidden Records and Financial Deception — Direct Delivery of Closing Documents

Texas Insurance Code § 2702.053 already requires title companies to itemize closing and settlement statement disclosures accurately, and federal TRID rules require a Closing Disclosure to be delivered no later than the day of closing (Texas Department of Insurance, n.d.; East Texas Title Companies, n.d.). But both of these existing requirements run to the parties of the closing — and in an estate sale, the party is the court-appointed administrator, not the heirs. Heirs who are not signatories to the closing currently have no independent legal right to receive that disclosure, which means an administrator inclined toward concealment can lawfully withhold it from the very people the estate exists to benefit.

The reform closes this gap directly at the source rather than relying on the administrator to voluntarily share records: the title company or escrow agent closing an estate real property sale must deliver, by certified mail or verified commercial delivery, a true copy of the closing disclosure and any wire transfer confirmation directly to every heir or devisee of record who is not otherwise a party to the closing — no later than the date of closing itself. This shifts the disclosure obligation to a neutral, state-regulated third party (the title company, already licensed and regulated by the Texas Department of Insurance) rather than leaving it in the hands of the fiduciary whose conduct may be the very thing in dispute.

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DALLAS COUNTY PROBATE COURTS — SYSTEMIC ISSUES AND OVERSIGHT GAPS

Court Structure

Dallas County operates three statutory probate courts (Courts No. 1, 2, and 3), located at the George Allen Courts Building, 600 Commerce Street, Dallas. Each court is headed by an elected judge serving a four-year term.

Probate Court No. 1 — The Honorable Julia R. Malveaux
Probate Court No. 2 — The Honorable Ingrid M. Warren
Probate Court No. 3 — The Honorable Margaret Jones-Johnson

The courts have jurisdiction over wills, guardianships, mental health commitments, and related matters.

Documented Structural Deficiency — Staffing

A documented analysis of Dallas County probate courts highlighted a severe structural staffing problem compared to comparable Texas counties:

Houston (Harris County): Each probate court has a judge, an associate judge, and 10–12 staff members, including at least one staff attorney, a court investigator, and a guardianship coordinator.
Fort Worth (Tarrant County): Each court has a judge and 10–12 additional staff, including staff attorneys, a dedicated court investigator, and a guardianship coordinator.
Austin (Travis County): The probate court has a judge, an associate judge, and multiple staff attorneys.
Dallas County: Each court historically had only 4–5 staff members total — no dedicated staff attorneys, no associate judges, no dedicated court investigator per court, and no guardianship coordinator per court.

Instead of a court investigator assigned to each Dallas County probate court, Dallas draws from a shared "investigator pool." While local rules call for investigator reports within 30 days, reports have routinely been delayed 3 to 4 months — during which time guardianship cases cannot proceed and vulnerable individuals cannot receive the care they need.

Dallas County's Probate Court Investigators' Office accepts complaints at GuardianshipComplaints@dallascounty.org and by phone at (214) 653-6533.

Documented Case: Dallas Probate Judge Misconduct (2018)

In 2018, the Fifth Court of Appeals in Dallas ordered the Dallas Probate Court to reopen a $100 million business dispute — the estate battle over a trust controlling an industrial warehouse — after the plaintiff's lawyers alleged that trial judge Dallas Probate Judge John Peyton Jr. had an undisclosed personal relationship with an attorney representing the prevailing party.

The Fifth Court of Appeals, in an opinion authored by Justice Craig Stoddart (joined by Justices Elizabeth Lang-Miers and Robert Fillmore), held that the allegations of "judicial and attorney misconduct that violated his right to due process and precluded him from fully litigating his case" were legally sufficient to proceed to hearing. The estate had to go back to square one — at enormous cost to all parties — because the problem was only caught on appeal.

This case illustrates why the reforms outlined in Sections 10 and 12 are not theoretical. When judicial and attorney conflicts are not caught proactively, the remedy is expensive, slow, and available only to those with the resources to appeal.

Documented Concern: Closed Professional Networks in Probate Court

In 2026, advocacy groups and affected families in Dallas County have raised concerns about a pattern where the same attorneys, ad litems, and court-appointed fiduciaries appear repeatedly in contested cases before the same judges — creating at minimum the appearance of favoritism if not actual bias.

It is important to note: these concerns reflect complaints in process, not adjudicated findings. They are documented here as a reflection of real constituent experience that warrants legislative attention and structural reform — not as established findings of misconduct.

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JUDICIAL MISCONDUCT AND RECUSAL — THE OVERSIGHT SYSTEM

The State Commission on Judicial Conduct (SCJC)

The SCJC is the independent Texas state agency established by Article 5, Section 1-a of the Texas Constitution to investigate allegations of judicial misconduct or disability. Following the passage of Texas Proposition 12 (November 2025), the SCJC underwent significant reform ((Ballotpedia, 2025a))).

Post-Proposition 12 composition: 7 public members out of 13 total — a public majority for the first time in the commission's history, up from 5 previously.

Additional reforms under Proposition 12:

Eliminates "private warning" shielding for repeat offenders — persistent misconduct must be made public
Authorizes suspension without pay as an immediate sanction for serious misconduct
Permanent ban from judicial office for judges removed for misconduct
Strict investigation timelines — complaints can no longer be indefinitely delayed
Citizen complaints now reviewed by a board where the majority are non-judges

Filing Judicial Complaints

Any person may file a complaint against a Texas judge with the SCJC. Complaints must:

Be written and sworn
Describe the specific conduct with supporting evidence
Be filed at scjc.texas.gov or mailed to: State Commission on Judicial Conduct, P.O. Box 12265, Austin, Texas 78711-2265

The SCJC cannot reverse court decisions — that is the domain of appellate courts — but it can sanction, censure, suspend, or recommend removal of judges whose conduct violates the Canons of Judicial Conduct.

The Recusal Problem in Dallas County

In 2022, a combined 13 attorneys filed 50 recusal requests against a single Dallas County district judge (Judge Amber Givens), claiming a record of bias. A related judicial sanction case noted that more than 100 recusal motions were filed against her in a short period of time. While this specific case involved criminal/civil district courts rather than probate courts, it illustrates the failure modes of Dallas County's judicial oversight environment when accountability is absent.

For probate courts specifically, the 2018 Fifth Court of Appeals decision on the Peyton case demonstrates that probate judges are not immune from conflict-of-interest problems — and that the only current mechanism available to affected heirs is expensive, time-consuming appellate litigation after the fact. The reforms in Sections 10 and 12 are designed to make accountability available before the damage is done.

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RECENT REFORMS — 89TH LEGISLATURE (2025) AND WHAT CHANGED

The 89th Texas Legislature (2025) passed Senate Bill 1448 (signed, effective September 1, 2025) along with several other estate and trust updates. Key reforms affecting heirs and property rights:

Probate Administration Updates

DATA TABLE

Key Comparison Table

Structured data extracted from the article draft.

Change	Impact
Courts now require statutory probate orders to be delivered via the statewide electronic filing system	Greater transparency and accessibility
Inventories must state whether the decedent was married; married decedents require community/separate property breakdown	Harder for executors to obscure asset character
When a case transfers counties, the original will must be physically delivered to the new court	Prevents document loss or manipulation
A copy of a will with a proper self-proving affidavit can make that copy "self-proved"	Protects heirs when original will cannot be located
If paper copy of will is filed, clerk must retain it as if it were the original	Prevents destruction of backup evidence
Personal representatives may use unsworn declarations instead of notarized oaths	Reduces administrative burden
Electronic filing of probate documents authorized	Modernization
Forgery of a will, codicil, or deed is now a third-degree felony (upgraded from state jail felony)	Stronger deterrence of estate fraud
Motor vehicles inherited from an estate exempt from gift tax and 6.25% sales tax	Family financial relief
A 19th-century provision allowing creditors to force heirs to post bond has been repealed	Eliminates a punitive tool against heirs

Source. Final article draft and cited sources embedded in the text.

Guardianship Updates

DATA TABLE

Key Comparison Table

Structured data extracted from the article draft.

Change	Impact
Courts may now appoint a guardian ad litem for proposed wards (not just adjudicated)	Earlier protection for vulnerable individuals
Adverse-interest parties cannot apply to become guardians, request removal, or contest removal	Closes self-interested exploitation pathway
Courts must now enter orders approving or rejecting annual guardian reports/accounts	Forces judicial engagement, prevents reports from being filed and ignored
Guardians of individuals over 60 or with dementia must complete annual dementia training	Accountability for care quality

Source. Final article draft and cited sources embedded in the text.

Constitutional Amendments Passed (November 2025)

Prohibition on estate, gift, and GST taxes at the state level — permanently embedded in the Texas Constitution (Art. VIII, Sec. 26)
Prohibition on capital gains taxes for individuals, families, estates, and trusts (Art. VIII, Sec. 24-b)
Proposition 12 — SCJC Reform — public majority on judicial conduct commission, stronger sanctions, public accountability

SB 1448 — Addressing 2023 Reform Gaps

SB 1448 (89th Legislature, passed June 20, 2025, effective September 1, 2025) was specifically described in legislative analysis as addressing "gaps and oversights from 2023 probate reforms," supported by the Texas Real Estate and Probate Institute ((Capitol.texas.gov, 2025a)). Each session's reforms reveal new gaps — confirming that the work of protecting heirs is ongoing and never truly finished.

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SELF-HELP REMEDIES WHILE THE LAW CATCHES UP

Until the Legislature fixes these structural problems, heirs still need practical tools to stop damage in real time. These remedies are not ideal. They are often expensive, technical, and reactive. But they are the tools current Texas law already provides when a probate judge, executor, or court-appointed attorney refuses to follow mandatory law.

Force the Record — Especially on Chapter 23A Issues

When inherited real property may qualify as heirs' property under Texas Property Code Chapter 23A, the first defensive move is often procedural: force the court to decide the issue expressly and on the record. Under Tex. Prop. Code § 23A.003, if the court determines the property is heirs' property, the partition must proceed under Chapter 23A unless all cotenants agree otherwise. Under § 23A.006, once that determination is made, the court must determine fair market value using the chapter's required process.

In practical terms, heirs should not rely on a probate court to apply Chapter 23A on its own initiative. A written motion forcing a Chapter 23A determination creates a clear ruling point. If the court refuses to rule, delays indefinitely, or denies the motion without applying the statute's mandatory framework, that failure creates the record needed for appeal or mandamus.

Why this matters for legislation: current law creates the substantive protection, but not a strong forcing mechanism when a judge simply declines to act. That is why the reform section in this article should require a hard deadline for courts to rule on Chapter 23A applicability once properly raised.

Writ of Mandamus — Emergency Relief from a Higher Court

When a trial court refuses to perform a ministerial duty — meaning a duty the law requires rather than leaves to discretion — Texas law allows a party to seek extraordinary relief through a petition for writ of mandamus in the court of appeals. The Fifth Court of Appeals in Dallas has a dedicated writ docket, and the Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure specifically contemplate mandamus proceedings in the courts of appeals, with further review available in the Texas Supreme Court after the court of appeals rules.

Mandamus is powerful because it can bypass the slow pace of an ordinary appeal. Under TRAP 52.10(a), the relator may also seek temporary relief or a stay while the appellate court considers the petition. In probate, that can matter enormously if estate property is about to be sold, transferred, or encumbered before the family receives a merits ruling.

But mandamus is not a true solution for ordinary heirs. It requires rapid appellate work, a clean record, and a clear legal duty that the lower court failed to perform. It is expensive and highly specialized. That is why the goal of legislation should be to make mandamus the rare exception, not the standard path families must use just to force a probate judge to obey mandatory law.

Lis Pendens — Freezing the Sale Pipeline

A notice of lis pendens is one of the most practical existing tools heirs can use when real estate is being sold during a live title or ownership dispute. Under Texas Property Code § 12.007, a party seeking affirmative relief in an action involving title to real property, establishment of an interest in real property, or enforcement of an encumbrance may file a lis pendens in the county real-property records. The notice must identify the case, the court, the parties, the type of proceeding, and the affected property, and the filer must serve it on each party with an interest in the property no later than the third day after filing.

In practice, a properly filed lis pendens places a cloud on title that title companies, real estate agents, and buyers cannot safely ignore. It does not decide the merits, but it can stop a closing long enough for heirs to obtain judicial review. In a probate setting, that can be the difference between preserving the family land and losing it before the appeal is even heard.

Texas probate sale procedure shows why timing matters. Under Estates Code § 356.001, estate property generally may not be sold without a court order. Under § 356.551, a successful bid or real-property contract must later be reported to the court, and under § 356.556, the court confirms the sale only if it finds the sale fair, properly made, and in conformity with law. That means the article's proposed reforms can be drafted to fit the existing sale-confirmation framework instead of replacing it: before a court signs an order authorizing sale of disputed real property, and again before confirming the sale, the judge should be required to make express written findings that required notices, citations, and waivers are on file and that no unresolved heirship-property or title-protection motion remains pending.

The problem is that current law also makes lis pendens vulnerable. Under Texas Property Code § 12.0071, an opposing party may move to expunge the lis pendens, and the court must expunge it if the pleading lacks a real-property claim, the claimant fails to show probable validity by a preponderance of the evidence, or service requirements were not met. Under § 12.008, the court may also cancel the lis pendens if the claimant can be adequately protected by money deposited into the registry or by an approved undertaking. That may be sensible in ordinary commercial disputes. It is far less sensible when heirs are trying to stop irreversible loss of family property pending a probate ruling.

Judicial Conduct Complaints

When a judge ignores mandatory law, shows bias, cuts off evidence unfairly, or otherwise abuses the office, heirs can file a complaint with the State Commission on Judicial Conduct. The commission cannot reverse a probate ruling — that requires appellate review — but it can discipline, censure, suspend, or remove judges for misconduct. Proposition 12 strengthened this system by creating a public-member majority and increasing transparency for repeat misconduct.

A judicial complaint is therefore not a substitute for appeal or mandamus. It is a parallel accountability tool. The best use of it is often to document repeated disregard of mandatory statutes, repeated refusal to rule, or repeated patterns of favoritism toward the same network of lawyers and court appointees.

Waivers, Notice, and the Clerk's File

Another overlooked protection for heirs is the law of waivers and notice. Texas probate law allows certain notices to be waived in writing, but waiver is never supposed to be presumed. Under Texas Estates Code § 51.201, a legally competent interested person may waive notice of a probate hearing in writing. Under § 202.056, a distributee age 16 or older may waive service of citation in heirship proceedings. For probate of a will after four years, county probate court instructions and Estates Code Chapter 258 materials reflect that proof of personal service on heirs or filed waivers of notice and citation become critical parts of the record.

This means that when heirs report that no waivers were signed and filed with the clerk, that allegation matters. It may indicate one of several problems: notice was never properly secured, waivers were never obtained, waivers exist but were not filed into the record, or the court moved forward without the procedural protections the code expects. That is not merely a technicality. Notice defects can shape who appears, who contests, and whether later rulings are vulnerable.

For legislation, the key point is this: the law should not rely on families to inspect a clerk's file and discover after the fact that notice paperwork is missing. Probate courts should be required to make an express on-the-record finding that all required notices, citations, waivers, and returns have been filed before any order authorizing sale of estate real property may be signed.

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IDENTIFIED GAPS AND RECOMMENDED REFORMS

Based on this research, the following gaps remain in Texas law as of June 2026. These represent areas where I, as your representative at the Texas House, would advocate for legislative action:

Gap 1 — The Post-Death Power Vacuum (★ HIGH PRIORITY)

Problem: No person has immediate legal authority to preserve estate assets between the moment of death and the formal appointment of an executor or administrator. The temporary administration process is too slow and too uncertain for true emergencies.

Reform: Authorize testators to designate a pre-authorized temporary estate preservationist in their will; allow preservation authority to vest immediately in named executors for preservation-only actions subject to later ratification; streamline emergency temporary administration proceedings.

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Gap 2 — The Estranged Spouse Intestate Trap (★ HIGH PRIORITY)

Problem: A legally married but estranged spouse is treated as a full intestate heir if the deceased leaves no will, trust, or postnuptial agreement — regardless of years of separation.

Reform: Explore a limited intestate separation clause where a court-certified separation agreement filed in county deed records would bar intestate spousal inheritance rights without requiring a full divorce, while carefully preserving community property rights.

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Gap 3 — Independent Administration Oversight Vacuum (★ HIGH PRIORITY)

Problem: Once declared independent, an executor operates largely beyond court supervision unless a beneficiary affirmatively seeks intervention. Many heirs don't know their rights.

Reform: Require independent executors to file annual summary status reports with the probate court; create a standardized heir notification of rights document sent to all beneficiaries within 30 days of appointment; define "material conflict of interest" by statute.

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Gap 4 — Dallas County Probate Court Staffing (★ HIGH PRIORITY — LOCAL)

Problem: Dallas County Probate Courts are dramatically understaffed relative to comparable Texas counties — no dedicated court investigators per court, no guardianship coordinators per court, no staff attorneys. Investigation delays of 3–4 months are routine.

Reform: Advocate for dedicated court investigator and guardianship coordinator positions in each Dallas County Probate Court consistent with Harris, Tarrant, and Travis county standards; include Dallas County probate staffing in any state-level judicial resources allocation bill.

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Gap 5 — Judicial Recusal Standards and Network Conflicts

Problem: Probate judges develop long-term working relationships with the same attorneys and ad litems who practice repeatedly before them. The recusal standard — requiring judges to self-identify and voluntarily recuse — is insufficient when the conflict is structural rather than individual.

Reform: Establish mandatory rotation of attorneys and guardian ad litems appointed by Dallas County probate courts using a randomized court-managed list; require public quarterly disclosure of all court-appointed fiduciary appointment logs; support enhanced SCJC enforcement authority for probate-specific conduct standards.

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Gap 6 — No-Contest Clause Alignment Between Wills and Trusts

Problem: The no-contest clause standard for wills (§ 254.005) differs subtly from the standard for trusts (§ 112.038), creating inconsistency for integrated estate plans.

Reform: Align the statutory standards, creating a single unified enforcement rule regardless of the instrument type.

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Gap 7 — Four-Year Probate Deadline Public Awareness

Problem: The four-year deadline to probate a will (§ 256.003) is unknown to most Texans. Missing it destroys the will's effect.

Reform: Require county clerk offices to display and distribute plain-language notices about the four-year probate deadline at every death-related filing; explore extension to five years with a court showing of good cause.

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Gap 8 — Heir Property Partition UPHPA Notice and Enforcement

Problem: Co-heirs — particularly in rural communities — often do not know the UPHPA exists or that they have a right of first refusal when another co-owner seeks partition.

Reform: Require any partition petition that may qualify as "heirs' property" under Chapter 23A to include a mandatory notice to all co-owners of their UPHPA rights in plain language; establish state-funded legal aid for UPHPA proceedings targeting rural and low-income heirs.

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Gap 9 — Transfer-on-Death Deed Design Limitations

Problem: TODDs cannot designate unequal shares to multiple beneficiaries, and if one beneficiary predeceases the grantor, their share lapses entirely.

Reform: Amend Chapter 114 to allow percentage designation to multiple TODD beneficiaries; establish optional survivorship rights within TODDs.

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Gap 10 — Probate Judge Bond Cap Inadequacy (★ NEW)

Problem: Even after the 89th Legislature raised the probate judge bond to $500,000 ((Capitol.texas.gov, 2025b)), this cap is woefully inadequate when a single estate may be worth tens of millions of dollars. Heirs whose losses exceed $500,000 due to a judge's gross neglect have no bonded remedy for the excess — and gross neglect is already a high bar to prove.

Reform: Index the probate judge's bond to the aggregate value of estates under active administration in the court — not a flat legislative figure. Establish a formula of 2% of the aggregate appraised value of all estates under active administration in the court, with a floor of $500,000 and a ceiling of $5 million, recalculated annually from the prior fiscal year docket. This ties the bond to actual risk while keeping the amount administrable and insurable.

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Gap 11 — Court-Appointed Ad Litem Fee Cap and Heir Disclosure (★ NEW)

Problem: There is no statutory cap on ad litem fees as a percentage of estate value. Heirs have no right to see the itemized fee voucher before the estate pays it. Once fees are paid, there is no retrospective clawback mechanism short of a separate civil lawsuit.

Reform:

Establish a statutory cap on court-appointed ad litem fees not to exceed 3% of the estate's gross appraised value or $25,000, whichever is less, absent written findings of extraordinary complexity
Require that itemized fee vouchers be served on all interested parties (heirs, beneficiaries) at the same time they are filed with the court, with a 30-day objection window before the court may approve payment
Create a motion for recoupment mechanism allowing heirs to recover improperly approved fees within two years of estate closing without needing to file a separate civil lawsuit

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Gap 12 — The "Will First" Mandatory Provisional Admission Rule (★ NEW — HIGH PRIORITY)

Problem: A pre-admission will contest freezes the estate, strips the family of their chosen executor, and allows a court-appointed stranger to administer the estate — selling assets to pay fees — while the case drags on for years. A facially valid will should be admitted provisionally and the family's chosen executor should have authority to preserve the estate from the moment of filing, not after years of contested litigation.

Reform:

Amend the Estates Code to require mandatory provisional admission of any self-proved will within 45 days of filing, absent a verified allegation of forgery or lack of testamentary formalities supported by specific facts
Require courts to issue limited letters testamentary for estate preservation purposes to the named executor (or named successor) immediately upon provisional admission
Mandatory successor executor provision: When the primary named executor cannot serve, require courts to exhaust all named successors before appointing a court-selected administrator
Require a threshold standing hearing within 21 days of any pre-admission contest filing — contestant must demonstrate pecuniary interest with sworn evidence or face dismissal with prejudice
Require contestant bond as a condition of any asset-freeze effect from a pre-admission contest, in an amount equal to the greater of $25,000 or 2% of the gross appraised estate value, subject to increase for carrying costs, taxes, insurance, or business-operating losses shown by affidavit (modeled on TRCP Rule 684 temporary injunction bond requirements)
Convert the bad-faith contestant fee-shifting language from "may" to "shall" when bad faith is found on the record

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Gap 13 — Venue Transfer for Systemic Bias and Mandatory Chapter 23A Ruling Deadlines (★ NEW — HIGH PRIORITY)

Problem: Current law allows recusal of an individual judge but provides no mechanism for heirs to remove an entire contested probate proceeding from a county when the concern is a structural network of professional relationships between the court-appointed attorneys, the judge, and the beneficiaries of estate transactions. Removing the judge leaves the network intact.

Reform:

Create a systemic bias transfer petition — filed with the administrative judicial region's presiding judge — allowing transfer of a contested probate proceeding to an adjacent county's statutory probate court when two or more documented indicators of structural network bias are demonstrated by sworn affidavit
Transfer decisions made by the regional presiding judge within 30 days of petition
Require hard ruling deadlines when a party files a motion requesting a determination that property is heirs' property under Chapter 23A: the court must set the matter for submission or hearing within 20 days and sign a written determination within 10 days after submission or hearing; if the court fails to rule within the statutory deadline, the movant becomes automatically eligible to seek expedited mandamus relief
Require quarterly public disclosure of all court-appointed fiduciary appointments by probate court, publicly searchable by attorney name
Automatically disqualify any court-appointed fiduciary who has an undisclosed business interest in any entity that derives income from estate transactions — title company, real estate firm, appraisal firm, or referral network
Require mandatory written disclosure to the court and all heirs of any such business interest within 10 days of appointment

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Gap 14 — Lis Pendens Protection for Heirs (★ NEW)

Problem: Lis pendens is one of the few practical tools heirs currently have to stop the sale of disputed estate real property, but it is fragile. If heirs do not know to file it quickly, the property may be sold before the cloud on title appears. Even when properly filed, opposing parties may move to expunge it or substitute money or bond under current law, which can reopen the path to sale before the family receives a final merits ruling.

Reform:

In any probate or trust proceeding involving a pleaded dispute over title, beneficial ownership, testamentary authority, or alleged fiduciary misconduct affecting specific real property, authorize an automatic statutory lis pendens effect upon filing of the pleading and recording of a short-form notice by the clerk within 3 business days
Prohibit expunction or cancellation under Property Code §§ 12.0071 and 12.008 until the court first makes written findings that the heirs' claim is not probably valid and that sale will not cause irreparable loss of unique family property
Require title companies and brokers involved in estate sales to certify review of the probate docket and recorded lis pendens status before closing
Require probate courts to make an express finding that all required notices, citations, and waivers are on file before signing any order authorizing sale of disputed estate real property

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Gap 15 — Judicial Dead-End, Realtor Concentration, and Hidden Closing Records (★ NEW — 2027 SESSION)

Problem: Three related vulnerabilities remain even after Gaps 1 through 14: heirs facing a delinquent dependent administrator must file a motion in front of the same judge who appointed that administrator, with no automatic, judge-independent escalation path; a small circle of real estate professionals and administrators may control a disproportionate share of court-ordered estate sales with no public visibility into the pattern; and heirs who are not parties to an estate real property closing have no independent right to receive the closing disclosure or wire confirmation directly, leaving them dependent on the administrator's voluntary disclosure.

Reform:

Create an automatic escalation trigger: when an heir files a verified notice that a required Chapter 359 annual account or Section 356.551 Report of Sale is more than 30 days delinquent, jurisdiction over the dependent administration transfers automatically to the presiding judge of the administrative judicial region for review, without requiring the heir to prove judicial bias or file a recusal motion
Establish a statewide public probate real estate listing registry, maintained by the Office of Court Administration, requiring every court-appointed fiduciary to disclose each real estate professional engaged for an estate listing, how that professional was selected, and their relationship (if any) to the fiduciary, the fiduciary's attorney, or the court — searchable by county, listing professional, and fiduciary, and updated at least quarterly
Create a rebuttable presumption of conflict once a single listing professional crosses ten probate listings in one county within 24 months, shifting the burden to the fiduciary and listing professional to show the engagement was competitively solicited and fairly priced — a transparency-based deterrent rather than a hard numerical cap, which was considered and rejected for lack of any comparable precedent in Texas or other state law and for constitutional exposure under Texas's occupational licensing framework
Require title companies and escrow agents closing an estate real property sale to deliver certified copies of the closing disclosure and wire transfer confirmation directly to every heir and devisee of record who is not a signing party to the closing, no later than the date of closing, shifting this disclosure duty to a neutral, state-regulated third party rather than leaving it to the administrator whose conduct may be in dispute

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MY POSITION — WHERE I STAND

The purpose of government is not to redistribute wealth at death or to interfere in the private decisions of free citizens about how to care for those they love. The probate system exists for one reason: to honor, faithfully and completely, the final wishes of Texas citizens — and to protect those wishes from corruption, incompetence, and exploitation.

In HD109 — Cedar Hill, Lancaster, De Soto, Glenn Heights, Wilmer, Hutchins, Combine, Seagoville — families are dealing with these issues right now. Parents who've worked their whole lives to build something. Children who should inherit it. Courts that should protect it. And a system that too often fails to do so — not out of malice, but out of being underfunded, understaffed, and insufficiently accountable.

I have sat with constituents who have watched court-appointed strangers sell off the family home, the family land, and the family business — piece by piece — to pay the fees of attorneys and administrators who were never supposed to be there in the first place. Who were put there because a bad-faith contestant filed a piece of paper and a judge did not act to protect the family's rights. That is not justice. That is a system that has been captured by the people it was supposed to constrain.

I will support legislation that:

Closes the post-death protection gap to ensure estate assets cannot be lost or stolen before a court-appointed executor has authority to act
Requires the will to be honored first — provisional admission for self-proved wills, limited letters testamentary immediately, and contestants who must put up a bond and prove standing before they can freeze an estate
Gives heirs real tools to fight back — mandatory rights disclosures, standing to challenge ad litem fees before they are paid, the 5% monthly penalty for executor non-compliance, and a streamlined surcharge mechanism
Scales the judge's bond to the actual estate value in their court so that gross judicial neglect carries real financial consequences
Strengthens Dallas County probate court resources to match the standard enjoyed by families in Houston, Fort Worth, and Austin
Creates a systemic bias transfer mechanism so heirs can get out of a poisoned local network without having to prove actual corruption — the appearance of systemic conflict is sufficient
Mandates public transparency in court-appointed fiduciary assignments and automatically disqualifies any fiduciary with an undisclosed financial interest in estate transactions
Improves UPHPA notice requirements to protect rural and low-income heirs from forced partition sales they never knew they had the right to resist
Fixes the TODD designation limits to give families a more flexible probate-avoidance tool
Ends the judicial dead-end by creating an automatic, judge-independent escalation of jurisdiction when a dependent administrator misses a mandatory filing deadline, so heirs never have to plead their case in front of the very judge whose oversight is in question
Brings court-connected real estate activity into the light through a mandatory, statewide public registry of probate real estate listings — not a cap on anyone's business, but a guarantee that patterns of concentration are visible to every heir, journalist, and legislator in Texas
Cuts out the middleman on closing day by requiring title companies to deliver closing disclosures and wire confirmations directly to heirs, so no administrator can control what a family is allowed to see about the sale of their own inheritance

This is not about ideology. It is about keeping promises — the promise a father or mother makes to their children and grandchildren when they build something worth passing on. The government should be the guarantor of that promise. Right now, in too many Dallas County probate cases, it is not.

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House Bill Texas Heirs' Protection and Probate Accountability Act

90th Legislature • H.B. No. _____ • Rep. Will Campbell • HD109

By: ____________________

A BILL TO BE ENTITLED

AN ACT

relating to protections for heirs and devisees, administration of decedents' estates, contested probate proceedings, sales of estate real property, judicial assignment and transfer in certain probate matters, accountability of court-appointed fiduciaries, mandatory reporting of probate real estate listing activity, direct disclosure of closing documents to heirs, and related matters involving probate courts.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:

SECTION 1. This Act may be cited as the Texas Heirs' Protection and Probate Accountability Act.

SECTION 2. Subtitle E, Title 2, Estates Code, is amended by adding Chapter 258A to read as follows:

CHAPTER 258A. PROVISIONAL PROBATE OF CERTAIN SELF-PROVED WILLS

SUBCHAPTER A. GENERAL PROVISIONS

Sec. 258A.001. DEFINITIONS. In this chapter:

(a) "Provisional admission" means the temporary admission of a self-proved will to probate pending final adjudication of a timely contest.

(b) "Successor executor" means a person named in a will to serve if a prior named executor does not qualify, declines to serve, dies, resigns, or is removed.

Sec. 258A.002. APPLICABILITY. This chapter applies only to a written will that:

(a) is self-proved under applicable law; and

(b) is filed for probate not later than the fourth anniversary of the testator's death, unless another law authorizes probate after that date.

Sec. 258A.003. MANDATORY PROVISIONAL ADMISSION OF CERTAIN SELF-PROVED WILLS. (a) Except as provided by Subsection (b), the court shall provisionally admit a will described by Section 258A.002 to probate not later than the 45th day after the date the application is filed.

(b) The court may decline to provisionally admit a will under this section only if, before the 45th day after the date the application is filed, a contestant files a verified pleading alleging with specific facts that:

(1) the will is forged; or

(2) the will fails to satisfy testamentary formalities required by law.

(c) A pleading that alleges only undue influence, lack of capacity, mistake, revocation, or similar grounds does not prevent provisional admission under this section but may be litigated after provisional admission.

Sec. 258A.004. LIMITED LETTERS TESTAMENTARY. (a) On provisional admission of a will under this chapter, the court shall issue limited letters testamentary to the named executor or, if that executor does not qualify, to the next qualified successor executor named in the will.

(b) Limited letters testamentary issued under this section authorize only actions reasonably necessary to:

(1) preserve estate property;

(2) pay ad valorem taxes, insurance premiums, utility charges, payroll obligations, and other obligations necessary to prevent waste or interruption of a closely held business;

(3) collect rents, dividends, accounts receivable, and other income;

(4) defend or prosecute claims to preserve estate rights; and

(5) record notices, including a lis pendens or similar notice authorized by law, to preserve title to disputed estate real property.

Sec. 258A.005. SUCCESSOR EXECUTOR RULE. Before appointing an administrator or other court-selected fiduciary to exercise authority otherwise granted by a will, the court shall exhaust, in the order stated in the will, each qualified successor executor named in the will.

Sec. 258A.006. THRESHOLD STANDING HEARING FOR PRE-ADMISSION CONTESTS. (a) A person who files a contest before final probate of a will provisionally admitted under this chapter is entitled to a threshold standing hearing not later than the 21st day after the date the contest is filed.

(b) At the hearing, the contestant must establish by sworn evidence a pecuniary interest that would be adversely affected by admission of the will.

Sec. 258A.007. CONTESTANT BOND FOR ASSET-FREEZE RELIEF. (a) A contestant seeking relief that would stay, freeze, or materially restrict the provisional administration of an estate or the use, preservation, lease, operation, or transfer of estate property must post a bond.

(b) The bond must be in an amount equal to the greater of:

(1) $25,000; or

(2) two percent of the gross appraised value of the estate, as determined under Subsection (c).

(1) the inventory and appraisement, if filed;

(2) a sworn appraisal filed with the court; or

(3) if neither is available, a reasonable estimate supported by affidavit and documentary evidence.

(d) On motion and evidence of projected carrying costs, taxes, insurance, payroll, contractual default exposure, or business-operating losses, the court shall increase the bond in an amount sufficient to secure against probable damage from the requested relief.

SECTION 3. Chapter 23A, Property Code, is amended by adding Section 23A.0035 to read as follows:

Sec. 23A.0035. DEADLINE TO DETERMINE HEIRS' PROPERTY STATUS. (a) If a party files a motion asserting that real property is heirs' property, the court shall set the motion for submission or hearing not later than the 20th day after the date the motion is filed.

(b) The court shall sign a written order determining whether the property is heirs' property not later than the 10th day after the date of submission or hearing.

(c) If the court determines that the property is heirs' property, the court shall proceed in accordance with this chapter.

(d) Failure to comply with this section constitutes a failure to perform a ministerial duty for purposes of mandamus relief.

SECTION 4. Chapter 12, Property Code, is amended by adding Section 12.00715 to read as follows:

Sec. 12.00715. AUTOMATIC LIS PENDENS EFFECT IN CERTAIN PROBATE AND TRUST PROCEEDINGS. (a) In a probate or trust proceeding involving a pleaded dispute over title to real property, beneficial ownership of real property, testamentary authority affecting identified real property, or alleged fiduciary misconduct affecting identified real property, a statutory lis pendens effect arises on the filing of the pleading and the recording of a short-form notice by the clerk.

(b) Not later than the third business day after the date a qualifying pleading is filed, the clerk shall record in the real property records of each county in which the identified property is located a short-form notice containing:

(1) the style and cause number of the proceeding;

(2) the court in which the proceeding is pending;

(3) the names of the principal parties;

(4) a legal description or other sufficient identification of the property; and

(5) a statement that the proceeding involves a claim described by Subsection (a).

(c) A notice recorded under this section has the same force and effect as a notice of lis pendens recorded under Section 12.007.

(d) A court may not expunge or cancel a notice recorded under this section unless the court makes written findings that:

(1) the claimant failed to show the probable validity of the real-property claim; and

(2) expunction or cancellation will not create a substantial risk of irreparable loss of unique family property.

SECTION 5. Subchapter A, Chapter 356, Estates Code, is amended by adding Section 356.0015 to read as follows:

Sec. 356.0015. NOTICE, CITATION, AND WAIVER FINDINGS REQUIRED BEFORE CERTAIN SALE ORDERS. (a) In this section, "disputed estate real property" means estate real property that is the subject of a pending dispute involving title, beneficial ownership, testamentary authority, heirship-property status, or notice compliance.

(b) Before signing an order authorizing the sale of disputed estate real property, the court shall make a written finding that all notices, citations, returns, and waivers required by law and applicable to the pending dispute are on file with the clerk.

(1) the finding required by Subsection (b) remains true; and

(2) no unresolved motion concerning heirship-property status, title preservation, or required notice compliance remains pending.

SECTION 6. Chapter 53, Estates Code, is amended by adding Section 53.104 to read as follows:

Sec. 53.104. ITEMIZED VOUCHERS; NOTICE; FEE CAP FOR CERTAIN COURT-APPOINTED ATTORNEYS. (a) A court-appointed attorney seeking payment from an estate must file an itemized voucher and serve a copy on each interested person or the person's attorney of record.

(b) The court may not order payment earlier than the 30th day after the date service is completed, unless each interested person entitled to service waives the delay in writing.

(c) Except on written findings of extraordinary complexity, the total compensation awarded to a court-appointed attorney under this chapter may not exceed the lesser of:

(1) three percent of the gross appraised value of the estate; or

(2) $25,000.

SECTION 7. Chapter 351, Estates Code, is amended by adding Subchapter H to read as follows:

SUBCHAPTER H. AFFILIATED BUSINESS DISCLOSURES FOR COURT-APPOINTED FIDUCIARIES

Sec. 351.351. DISCLOSURE REQUIRED. A court-appointed personal representative, temporary administrator, receiver, attorney ad litem, guardian ad litem, or other court-appointed fiduciary shall file with the clerk, not later than the 10th day after the date of appointment, a sworn disclosure of any affiliated business interest.

Sec. 351.352. AFFILIATED BUSINESS INTEREST. In this subchapter, "affiliated business interest" means a direct or indirect ownership interest, compensation arrangement, referral-fee arrangement, profit-sharing arrangement, or management role in a title company, real estate brokerage, auction company, appraisal business, property-management company, or similar business that may derive income from an estate transaction.

Sec. 351.353. REMOVAL; DISQUALIFICATION. Failure to comply with this subchapter is grounds for removal, surcharge, fee forfeiture, or other appropriate relief. A court-appointed fiduciary who has a direct financial interest in an entity participating in an estate transaction is disqualified unless:

(1) each adult interested person gives written informed consent; and

(2) the court makes written findings that the appointment remains necessary and fair.

SECTION 8. Chapter 351, Estates Code, is amended by adding Subchapter I to read as follows:

SUBCHAPTER I. PUBLIC REPORTING OF PROBATE REAL ESTATE LISTING ACTIVITY

Sec. 351.371. DEFINITIONS. In this subchapter:

(1) "Listing professional" means a licensed real estate broker, salesperson, or brokerage that is engaged, retained, or referred by a court-appointed fiduciary, or by an attorney representing a court-appointed fiduciary, to list, market, or sell estate real property.

(2) "Probate real estate listing" means an engagement of a listing professional to list, market, or sell real property that is subject to sale under Chapter 356 or a comparable trust or guardianship sale proceeding.

(3) "Reporting county" means a county in which a statutory probate court, county court at law exercising probate jurisdiction, or constitutional county court exercising probate jurisdiction is located.

Sec. 351.372. MANDATORY DISCLOSURE OF LISTING ENGAGEMENT. (a) Not later than the 10th day after the date a court-appointed fiduciary engages a listing professional for a probate real estate listing, the fiduciary shall file with the clerk a sworn disclosure identifying:

(1) the name, license number, and brokerage affiliation of the listing professional;

(2) the relationship, if any, between the listing professional and the fiduciary, the fiduciary's attorney, or the court, including any prior business, family, or financial relationship;

(3) the method by which the listing professional was selected, including whether the engagement was competitively solicited; and

(4) the commission rate or fee arrangement for the listing.

(b) The clerk shall forward each disclosure filed under this section to the office of court administration for inclusion in the registry established under Section 351.373.

Sec. 351.373. STATEWIDE PROBATE REAL ESTATE LISTING REGISTRY. (a) The Office of Court Administration of the Texas Judicial System shall establish and maintain a public, searchable electronic registry of probate real estate listing disclosures filed under Section 351.372.

(b) The registry must be organized to allow the public to search and sort disclosures by:

(1) reporting county;

(2) listing professional and brokerage;

(3) court-appointed fiduciary; and

(4) calendar year.

(c) The registry must display, for each listing professional, a running count of the number of probate real estate listings received in each reporting county during the preceding 24 months.

(d) The Office of Court Administration shall publish the registry data in a downloadable, machine-readable format and update the registry not less than quarterly.

(e) The Office of Court Administration may adopt rules necessary to implement this section, including rules to standardize disclosure forms across counties.

Sec. 351.374. REBUTTABLE PRESUMPTION OF CONFLICT AT REPORTING THRESHOLD. (a) If the registry maintained under Section 351.373 shows that a listing professional has received more than ten probate real estate listings in a single reporting county within the preceding 24 months, a rebuttable presumption arises that continued engagement of that listing professional by the same fiduciary, the same attorney ad litem, or the same court presents a conflict of interest requiring disclosure and heightened scrutiny under Subchapter H.

(b) The presumption under Subsection (a) may be rebutted by a sworn showing that the engagement was competitively solicited, that the fee arrangement is at or below prevailing market rates, and that no undisclosed relationship exists between the listing professional and the fiduciary, the fiduciary's attorney, or the court.

(c) A presumption arising under this section does not itself disqualify a listing professional or a fiduciary. It shifts the burden of production on the question of conflict of interest in a removal, surcharge, or fee-forfeiture proceeding brought under this title.

Sec. 351.375. ENFORCEMENT; FAILURE TO REPORT. (a) A court-appointed fiduciary who fails to file a disclosure required by Section 351.372 is subject to removal, surcharge, and fee forfeiture under Section 351.353.

(b) A clerk's failure to forward a disclosure to the Office of Court Administration does not excuse a fiduciary's independent obligation to file the disclosure with the clerk within the time required by Section 351.372.

(c) Any interested person may file a written complaint with the Office of Court Administration alleging a failure to comply with this subchapter. The Office of Court Administration shall refer a substantiated complaint to the presiding judge of the applicable statutory probate court region.

SECTION 9. Chapter 356, Estates Code, is amended by adding Section 356.560 to read as follows:

Sec. 356.560. DIRECT DELIVERY OF CLOSING DOCUMENTS TO HEIRS. (a) In this section, "closing agent" means the title insurance company, title insurance agent, or attorney acting as escrow or settlement agent for the sale of estate real property under this chapter.

(b) Not later than the date of closing, a closing agent shall deliver, by certified mail or a commercially available service providing verified delivery confirmation, a true and correct copy of the closing disclosure or settlement statement and any wire transfer confirmation reflecting disbursement of sale proceeds to each heir or devisee of record who is not otherwise a signing party to the closing.

(c) The court-appointed fiduciary shall provide the closing agent, not later than the 10th day before the scheduled closing date, with the name and last known mailing address of each heir or devisee of record entitled to delivery under Subsection (b).

(d) A closing agent's compliance with Subsection (b) does not relieve a court-appointed fiduciary of any accounting or reporting duty otherwise required under this code.

(e) A closing agent who knowingly fails to comply with Subsection (b) is subject to referral to the Texas Department of Insurance for investigation under applicable title insurance regulations. Failure to comply with this section does not affect the validity of a closing or the title conveyed.

SECTION 10. Subchapter B, Chapter 359, Estates Code, is amended by adding Section 359.0515 to read as follows:

Sec. 359.0515. AUTOMATIC ESCALATION ON VERIFIED NOTICE OF FILING FAILURE. (a) This section applies to a dependent administration in which a personal representative has failed to timely file:

(1) an annual account required under this chapter; or

(2) a report of sale required under Section 356.551.

(b) An interested person may file a verified notice with the clerk stating that a filing described by Subsection (a) is more than 30 days past due.

(c) Not later than the third business day after a verified notice is filed under Subsection (b), the clerk shall transmit the notice and the case file to the presiding judge of the administrative judicial region in which the court is located.

(d) On receipt of a notice under Subsection (c), jurisdiction over the dependent administration automatically transfers to the presiding judge of the administrative judicial region for review, and the appointing court may take no further action in the administration except to preserve estate property, pending the presiding judge's determination under Subsection (e).

(e) Not later than the 15th day after the date the presiding judge receives a notice under this section, the presiding judge shall:

(1) confirm that the required filing remains delinquent and, if so, assign the administration to another statutory probate court, county court at law exercising probate jurisdiction, or qualified visiting judge for review of the delinquency and any related relief, including removal or surcharge; or

(2) return the administration to the appointing court on a finding that the required filing has been made or that no delinquency exists.

(f) A transfer under this section is not a finding of misconduct by the appointing judge and does not itself support a claim under Section 351.354.

(g) The Office of Court Administration shall adopt forms to implement the verified notice required by this section.

SECTION 11. Section 25.00255, Government Code, is amended by adding Subsection (m) to read as follows:

(m) The legislature finds that, in a contested probate proceeding pending in a statutory probate court, recusal of an individual judge may be insufficient to protect the rights of heirs and devisees if a sworn motion establishes structural conflict or closed-network bias affecting the fair administration of the proceeding. The legislature intends by separate substantive law to authorize transfer of a contested probate matter to another statutory probate court when necessary to ensure impartial adjudication.

SECTION 12. The heading to Subchapter A, Chapter 32, Estates Code, is amended to read as follows:

SUBCHAPTER A. TRANSFER OF CONTESTED PROBATE MATTERS [AND CERTAIN PROTECTIVE TRANSFERS]

SECTION 13. Chapter 32, Estates Code, is amended by adding Section 32.010 to read as follows:

Sec. 32.010. PROTECTIVE TRANSFER OF CERTAIN CONTESTED PROBATE PROCEEDINGS. (a) A party to a contested probate proceeding pending in a statutory probate court may file with the presiding judge of the administrative judicial region a verified petition requesting transfer of the contested matter or, if necessary for effective relief, the entire proceeding to a statutory probate court in an adjacent county.

(b) The petition must allege at least two indicators of structural conflict or closed-network bias prescribed by law.

(d) If the presiding judge grants the petition, the presiding judge shall assign the contested matter or proceeding to a statutory probate court in an adjacent county.

SECTION 14. Section 22.018, Estates Code, is amended by adding Subsection (c) to read as follows:

(c) For purposes of a contest filed before final probate of a will provisionally admitted under Chapter 258A, an interested person must satisfy the standing requirements of Section 258A.006.

SECTION 15. The changes in law made by this Act apply only to an application for probate, contest, motion, sale application, fee application, listing engagement, or appointment made on or after the effective date of this Act, except that Section 356.0015, Estates Code, as added by this Act, applies to any sale order or sale confirmation signed on or after the effective date of this Act regardless of when the estate proceeding commenced.

SECTION 16. This Act takes effect September 1, 2027.

Formatted per Texas Legislative Council Drafting Manual, 89th Legislature • Estates Code, Property Code, and Government Code amendments Rep. Will Campbell, Texas House District 109 • willcampbellfortexas.com

REFERENCES — ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Ballotpedia. (2023). Dallas County Probate Courts, Texas. https://ballotpedia.org/Dallas_County_Probate_Courts,_Texas

Overview of the structure, jurisdiction, and election process for Dallas County's three statutory probate courts. Documents that judges are elected in partisan elections and serve four-year terms. Used to establish the court structure context for Section 14.

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Ballotpedia. (2025a). Texas Proposition 12, Change Membership and Authority of State Commission on Judicial Conduct Amendment (2025). https://ballotpedia.org/Texas_Proposition_12,_Change_Membership_and_Authority_of_State_Commission_on_Judicial_Conduct_Amendment_(2025)

Official ballot measure documentation for Proposition 12 (SJR 27), approved November 4, 2025. Covers the change in SCJC composition from judicial majority to public member majority, new accountability mechanisms, and enhanced sanction authority. Primary source for Section 15.

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Ballotpedia. (2025b). Texas Proposition 8, Prohibit Estate Taxes and New Taxes on Estate Transfers, Inheritances, and Gifts Amendment (2025). https://ballotpedia.org/Texas_Proposition_8,_Prohibit_Estate_Taxes

Official documentation for the 2025 constitutional amendment permanently prohibiting state-level estate, inheritance, and gift taxes in Texas. Used for the constitutional amendments discussion in Section 17.

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Barwick, P. J., Pathak, P. A., & Wong, M. (2017). Conflicts of interest and steering in residential brokerage. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 9(3), 191–222. https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/app.20160214

Peer-reviewed economic study analyzing over 650,000 residential real estate listings, finding that properties offering below-market buyer-agent commissions sold five percent less often and took twelve percent longer to sell. Used in Section 14 as empirical, data-based evidence that broker commission incentives measurably distort market outcomes — supporting the rationale for mandatory public reporting of probate real estate listing activity.

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Capitol.texas.gov. (2025a). SB 1448 bill analysis, 89th Legislature. https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/89R/analysis/html/SB01448F.htm

Official Texas Legislature legislative analysis for Senate Bill 1448, enacted June 20, 2025, effective September 1, 2025. Confirms the bill's purpose of addressing gaps from 2023 probate reforms, with support from the Texas Real Estate and Probate Institute. Primary source for Section 16.

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Capitol.texas.gov. (2025b). SB 387 bill analysis, 89th Legislature. https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/89R/analysis/html/SB00387H.htm

Official legislative analysis for Senate Bill 387 (89th Legislature, 2025), which raised the bond requirement for statutory probate court judges from varying county-based amounts to a minimum of $500,000. Used for the judge bond cap discussion in Section 10 and Gap 10 in Section 17.

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D Magazine. (2018, July 22). The $100 Million Affair That Turned a Dallas Courtroom Into a Circus. https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/2017/april/100-million-affair-dallas-county-courtroom-judge-john-peyton-jr-tina-ashley/

Investigative magazine feature documenting the Peyton probate case, including the undisclosed personal relationship between Associate Judge John Peyton Jr. and an attorney appearing before him in a $100 million estate dispute. Used in Section 13 to substantiate the real-world cost of judicial conflicts of interest that are caught only after significant delay, supporting the case for an automatic, judge-independent escalation trigger.

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Dallas County. (2026a). Probate Court Investigators' Office — Concerns or Complaints. https://www.dallascounty.org/government/courts/probate/probate-cio/concerns-complaints.php

Official Dallas County government page describing the complaint submission process, response timeline, and scope of potential court action for guardianship complaints. Used to document the official complaint mechanism in Section 14.

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Dallas County. (2026b). Probate Courts. https://www.dallascounty.org/government/courts/probate/

Official Dallas County government pages listing the current presiding judges, contact information, and structure of the three Dallas County Probate Courts. Used in Section 14.

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Denton County. (n.d.). Court Instructions for Dependent Administrator of Decedent's Estate [PDF]. https://www.dentoncounty.gov/DocumentCenter/View/2661/Court-Instructions-for-Dependent-Administrator-PDF

Official county court guidance listing the statutory filing deadlines that apply to dependent administrators, including the 90-day inventory deadline and annual accounting requirements. Used in Section 13 to establish the current-law baseline that the automatic escalation reform builds upon.

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East Texas Title Companies. (n.d.). The Closing Disclosure (CD) [PDF newsletter]. https://www.etextitle.com/Files/TRID%20Train%20Newsletter-Issue%204.pdf

Industry training material explaining the federal TRID rule's Closing Disclosure delivery timeline and the settlement agent's role in preparing and delivering the disclosure to the seller. Used in Section 13 to establish that existing disclosure rules run to the parties of a closing, not to non-party heirs, supporting the case for the direct-to-heir delivery reform.

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FindLaw. (2024a). Texas Government Code — GOV'T § 25.00256. Tertiary Recusal Motion Against Judge. https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/government-code/gov-t-sect-25-00256/

Statutory text of the tertiary recusal motion provision, including the fee-shifting penalty imposed on a party who files a third or subsequent recusal motion against the same judge. Used in Section 13 to substantiate the claim that recusal is a structurally disincentivized remedy for heirs.

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FindLaw. (2024b). Texas Estates Code — EST § 356.551. Report. https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/estates-code/est-sect-356-551/

Statutory text of the Report of Sale requirement, confirming the 30-day filing deadline after a successful bid or contract for sale of estate real property. Used in Section 13 as the statutory baseline for the automatic escalation trigger.

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FindLaw. (2024c). Texas Estates Code — EST § 356.556. Approval or Disapproval Order. https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/estates-code/est-sect-356-556/

Statutory text requiring courts to enter a written order approving or disapproving a reported estate property sale, with final-judgment effect appealable by any interested person. Used in Section 13 to confirm the existing court-oversight mechanism for estate real property sales.

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Ford + Bergner LLP. (2008, April). Dallas County Commissioners Fail the Probate Courts. https://fordbergner.com/blog/2008/04/dallas-county-commissioners-fail-the-probate-courts/

Documented analysis and comparison of Dallas County Probate Court staffing versus Harris County, Tarrant County, and Travis County. Documents the absence of dedicated court investigators, guardianship coordinators, and staff attorneys in each Dallas court, and the resulting 3–4 month investigation delays. Primary source for the staffing deficiency analysis in Section 14.

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Graber & Johnson Law Group. (2023, December 17). Florida Guardianship Case Raises Red Flag for Estate Planning. https://graberjohnson.com/florida-guardianship-case-raises-red-flag-for-estate-planning/

Practitioner analysis of a Florida guardianship case in which a court-appointed guardian sold a ward's home more than $100,000 under market value through a private arrangement with a real estate team from the guardian's own community, and an inspector general investigation found the same guardian had used the same agents in at least two other sales. Used in Section 13 as the closest documented analogue to the court-connected real estate concentration concern, in the absence of a Texas-specific dataset.

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Hatchett Legal Team. (2025a, February 3). What is the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act? https://hatchettlegalteam.com/what-is-the-uniform-partition-of-heirs-property-act/

Practitioner overview of the UPHPA, its protections for co-heirs against forced partition sales, and its appraisal and right-of-first-refusal mechanisms. Used to supplement the statutory analysis of Texas Property Code Chapter 23A in Section 6.

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Hatchett Legal Team. (2025b, July 16). Can an Executor Be Removed After Receiving Letters Testamentary? https://hatchettlegalteam.com/can-an-executor-be-removed-after-receiving-letters-testamentary/

Practitioner overview of the executor removal process under Texas Estates Code § 404.003, including the grounds for removal and the procedure for heir petitions. Used for Sections 9 and 10.

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Heights Law Group. (2022, January 18). Surviving Spouse Rights in Texas. https://heightslawgroup.com/surviving-spouse-rights-in-texas/

Legal overview of surviving spouse inheritance rights under Texas community property law, including homestead rights, exempt property allowances, and family allowances. Used for Sections 4 and 6.

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J. Nichols Law. (2025a, April 14). Homestead Protections in Texas Probate. https://jnicholslaw.com/homestead-protections-in-texas-probate-what-heirs-need-to-know/

Practitioner overview of Texas homestead protections in probate, including creditor exemptions and the rights of surviving spouses and minor children. Used for Section 6.

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J. Nichols Law. (2025b, February 14). Executor Compensation in Texas. https://jnicholslaw.com/executor-compensation-in-texas/

Practitioner analysis of executor compensation under Texas Estates Code § 352.002, including the 5% cap and court authority to reduce compensation for inadequate performance. Used for Section 10.

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Justia. (2025a). Texas Estates Code § 351.354 — Judge's Liability. https://law.justia.com/codes/texas/estates-code/title-2/subtitle-h/chapter-351/subchapter-h/section-351-354/

Primary statutory source establishing probate judge bond liability for gross neglect causing loss to estates under court administration. Full text of the statute quoted in Section 10. Central to the judge accountability analysis and Gap 10.

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Justia. (2025b). Texas Estates Code § 404.003 — Removal of Independent Executor. https://law.justia.com/codes/texas/estates-code/title-2/subtitle-i/chapter-404/section-404-003/

Primary statutory source establishing grounds for removal of an independent executor, including gross misconduct, gross mismanagement, and material conflict of interest. Documents both the basis for removal and the rule that an executor defending in good faith may recover defense costs from the estate. Used for Sections 9 and 10.

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Justia. (2025c). Texas Estates Code § 355.113 — Liability for Nonpayment of Claim. https://law.justia.com/codes/texas/2022/estates-code/title-2/subtitle-h/chapter-355/subchapter-c/section-355-113/

Primary statutory source establishing the 5% per month compounding damage penalty for executors who refuse to pay court-ordered estate payments with estate funds available. Used as a key enforcement mechanism in Section 10.

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Justia. (2025d). Texas Estates Code § 405.003 — Judicial Discharge of Independent Executor. https://law.justia.com/codes/texas/estates-code/title-2/subtitle-i/chapter-405/section-405-003/

Primary statutory source establishing that upon judicial discharge, an executor must personally repay any fees or expenses not approved by the court as proper estate charges. Used for the fee clawback analysis in Section 10.

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Justia. (2024a). Texas Estates Code § 53.104 — Appointment of Attorneys Ad Litem. https://law.justia.com/codes/texas/estates-code/title-2/subtitle-b/chapter-53/subchapter-c/section-53-104/

Primary statutory source establishing the court's authority to appoint attorney ad litems and the requirement that compensation be reasonable and taxed as costs. Used for the ad litem fee analysis in Section 10.

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Justia. (2023). Texas Government Code § 25.002201 — Assignment of Judge on Recusal or Disqualification. https://law.justia.com/codes/texas/government-code/title-2/subtitle-a/chapter-25/subchapter-b/section-25-002201/

Primary statutory source establishing the procedure for assigning a replacement judge when a statutory probate court judge is recused or disqualified — specifically requiring the administrative judicial region's presiding judge to make the assignment within 15 days. Used for the venue and recusal analysis in Section 12.

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Justia. (2024b). Texas Estates Code § 32.004 — Jurisdiction of Contested Probate Proceeding in County With No Statutory Probate Court. https://law.justia.com/codes/texas/estates-code/title-2/subtitle-a/chapter-32/section-32-004/

Primary statutory source allowing county court judges in counties without statutory probate courts to transfer contested matters to county courts at law. Used to establish the existing (limited) inter-court transfer mechanism in Section 12.

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Justia. (2005). Wanda Hudson v. Texas Children's Hospital — Appeal from Probate Court No. 4 of Harris County. First Court of Appeals. https://law.justia.com/cases/texas/first-court-of-appeals/2005/81496.html

Appellate opinion holding that a recusal motion failing to strictly comply with Rule 18a's particularity and personal-knowledge requirements is waived, regardless of the merits of the underlying conflict. Used in Section 13 as case-law evidence that recusal is a procedurally difficult remedy for heirs, supporting the case for an automatic escalation mechanism that does not depend on proving judicial bias.

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Justia. (2024c). Texas Estates Code, Title 2, Subtitle H, Chapter 359, Subchapter B, Section 359.051 — Filing and Consideration of Annual Account. https://law.justia.com/codes/texas/estates-code/title-2/subtitle-h/chapter-359/subchapter-b/section-359-051/

Primary statutory text establishing the annual account filing and court-consideration process for personal representatives. Used in Section 13 as the current-law baseline for the annual-account escalation trigger.

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Kreiglaw. (2025, February 19). Will Contests in Texas Probate Courts. https://houston-probate-law.com/will-contests-in-texas-probate-courts/

Practitioner overview of Texas will contest procedures, including pre-admission and post-admission timing, burden of proof, and the two-year statute of limitations for post-admission contests. Used for the will contest procedure analysis in Section 11.

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Kreiglaw. (2026, June 1). When a Temporary Injunction Backfires: How Rule 683 Can Unravel Probate Court Orders Protecting Estate Property. https://kreiglaw.com/when-a-temporary-injunction-backfires-how-rule-683-can-unravel-probate-court-orders-protecting-estate-property/

Practitioner analysis of how TRCP Rule 683's temporary injunction requirements interact with probate court asset protection orders, including the bond requirement analogy. Used for the contestant bond reform concept in Section 11 and Gap 12.

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Legiscan. (2025). TX SB1448 | 2025–2026 | 89th Legislature. https://legiscan.com/TX/bill/SB1448/2025

Legislative tracking record for SB 1448, confirming passage on June 20, 2025, effective September 1, 2025. Used to verify bill status and passage date.

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McCulloch & Miller, PLLC. (2025, November 23). 2025 Texas Estate and Trust Law Changes and What Dallas Families Should Update Before 2026. https://blog.mcmfirm.com/2025-texas-estate-and-trust-law-changes-and-what-dallas-families-should-update-before-2026/

Dallas-focused practitioner summary of key 89th Legislature estate and trust law changes, including probate administration practical fixes, guardianship reforms, and criminal penalty upgrades for will forgery. Used for Section 16.

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Middleton, A. G. (2013). Power failure: How the Texas Probate Code leaves a gap in the ability to preserve estates after death. Texas A&M Law Review, 1(1), 229–252. https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1009&context=lawreview

Peer-reviewed legal scholarship from Texas A&M University School of Law examining the gap in Texas law between a person's death and the formal appointment of a personal representative. Documents the inadequacy of the temporary administration mechanism and proposes statutory amendments. Primary source for Section 8 and Gap 1.

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Old Republic Title. (n.d.). Texas Intestacy Chart (Real Property Only). https://www.oldrepublictitle.com/media/3182/tx-intestacy-chart.pdf

Official intestacy chart documenting Texas intestate succession rules for real property under the Texas Estates Code, covering all major family configurations. Used as a primary reference for Section 4.

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Rainey & Rainey. (2024, February 27). What is the Difference Between Independent and Dependent Administration in Texas Probate? https://www.raineyandrainey.com/blog/what-is-the-difference-between-independent-and-dependent-administration-in-texas-probate/

Practitioner overview of independent vs. dependent estate administration in Texas, including conditions under which each applies and default rules for intestate estates. Used for Section 9.

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Reece Law. (2026, May 26). Should I Add a No Contest Clause to My Will? https://reecerlaw.com/should-i-add-a-no-contest-clause-to-my-will/

Practitioner analysis of no-contest clause enforceability in Texas, including the good faith/probable cause exceptions under Estates Code § 254.005. Used for Section 3.

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Romano & Sumner, PLLC. (2020). How to Remove an Executor of an Estate in Texas. https://romanosumner.com/blog/how-to-remove-an-executor-of-an-estate-in-texas/

Practitioner overview of the executor removal process, grounds, and procedure. Used for the executor removal and standing analysis in Section 10.

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Shields Legal Group. (2025, October 8). 2025 Texas Estate and Trust Legislative Update. https://shieldslegal.com/2025texas-estate-and-trust-legislative-update/

Practitioner summary of all significant 89th Legislative Session estate, trust, and guardianship changes, including failed legislation (trust accounting reform, DAPTs) and tax/constitutional amendments. Primary reference for Section 16.

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Silb Law Firm. (2022a, June 12). Texas Uniform Partition of Heirs' Property Act. https://silblawfirm.com/real-estate-law/texas-uniform-partition-of-heirs-property-act/

Practitioner overview of Texas Property Code Chapter 23A (the UPHPA), including the 20% co-tenant threshold, appraisal requirements, right of first refusal, and partition-in-kind preference. Used for Section 6.

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Silb Law Firm. (2022b, July 21). Removing an Executor in Texas Probate Court. https://silblawfirm.com/probate/removing-an-executor-in-texas-probate-court/

Practitioner overview of Texas Estates Code § 304.003 and § 404.003 executor removal grounds and procedure, including the court's authority to reject a chosen executor under certain circumstances. Used for Sections 9 and 10.

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Silb Law Firm. (2024, June 13). Pretermitted Children and Inheritance Rights in Texas. https://silblawfirm.com/probate/pretermitted-children-and-inheritance-in-texas-understanding-your-rights/

Analysis of Texas Estates Code § 255.051 protections for pretermitted children. Used for Section 7.

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St. Mary's Law Journal. (2013). Examining the Standard in Texas. St. Mary's University School of Law. https://commons.stmarytx.edu/thestmaryslawjournal/vol44/iss1/4/

Legal scholarship examining executor removal grounds in Texas and the ambiguity in the "material conflict of interest" standard. Used for the independent administration gap analysis in Section 9 and Gap 3.

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St. Mary's Law Journal. (2012). Getting Paid in Probate Court. Robert J. Augsburger. https://commons.stmarytx.edu/thestmaryslawjournal/vol44/iss2/2/

Legal scholarship on attorney fee recovery mechanisms in Texas probate courts, including the requirement for competent evidence supporting fee awards and the appellate standard of review. Used for the ad litem fee challenge analysis in Section 10 and Gap 11.

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State Commission on Judicial Conduct. (2018, February 1). Peyton, John B. — Resignation Agreement. https://www.scjc.texas.gov/media/46659/peyton-resignation-agreement-signed.pdf

Official SCJC record documenting the resignation of Associate Judge John B. Peyton Jr. from the Dallas County Probate Courts following scrutiny of an undisclosed relationship in a high-value probate matter. Used in Section 13 as primary-source confirmation of the Peyton case outcome referenced in the automatic escalation reform discussion.

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State Commission on Judicial Conduct. (2024–2025). Special Court of Review Opinions. https://www.scjc.texas.gov/opinions/

Official SCJC opinions listing for recent judicial conduct proceedings. Used for context on the commission's oversight activity in Section 15.

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Texas Constitution, Article XVI, §§ 50–52. https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov

Primary constitutional source establishing Texas homestead protections, including the prohibition on partition of the homestead during the surviving spouse's lifetime. Used for Sections 2 and 6.

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Texas Department of Insurance. (n.d.). Texas Insurance Code Requirements and the New RESPA Rule [PDF]. https://www.tdi.texas.gov/title/documents/NewHUD1Guideline.pdf

Official state guidance quoting Texas Insurance Code § 2702.053 on itemized closing and settlement statement disclosure requirements for title companies. Used in Section 13 to establish the existing disclosure obligations that the direct-to-heir delivery reform builds upon.

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Texas Estates Code, Chapter 201 — Descent and Distribution. https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/docs/ES/htm/ES.201.htm

Primary statutory source governing Texas intestate succession. Used throughout Section 4.

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Texas Estates Code, § 22.018 — "Interested Person" Definition. Referenced via Justia and multiple practitioner sources.

Primary statutory source defining "interested person" for standing purposes in probate proceedings, specifically including spouses. Used for the will contest standing analysis in Sections 7 and 11.

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Texas Estates Code, § 254.005 — Forfeiture Clause. https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/ES/htm/ES.254.htm

Primary statutory source for no-contest clause provisions in Texas wills, including good faith and just cause exceptions. Used for Section 3.

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Texas Estates Code, § 255.051 — Pretermitted Children. Referenced via Silb Law Firm and multiple practitioner sources.

Primary statutory source establishing rights of pretermitted children. Used for Section 7.

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Texas Estates Code, § 1155.151 — Costs in Guardianship Proceedings. Referenced via texasprobate.com practitioner analysis.

Statutory authority for shifting court-appointed attorney and ad litem costs to a party who acted in bad faith or without just cause, rather than charging them to the estate. Used for the bad-faith fee-shifting analysis in Section 10 and Gap 12.

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Texas Government Code § 25.00255 — Administration of Statutory Probate Courts (Recusal). Accessed via Texas Legislature Online and Justia.

Primary statutory source governing recusal and disqualification of statutory probate court judges, including the 2007 amendment removing the presiding probate judge's authority to appoint their own replacement. Used for the venue reform analysis in Section 12.

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Texas Law Book. (2018, August 5). Appeals Court Revives Dallas Probate Case Over Alleged Judge-Attorney Misconduct. https://texaslawbook.net/appeals-court-revives-dallas-probate-case-over-alleged-judge-attorney-misconduct/

Legal news report on the Fifth Court of Appeals decision ordering reopening of a $100M Dallas estate dispute due to alleged undisclosed relationship between Probate Judge John Peyton Jr. and an attorney for the prevailing party. Used as primary source for the judicial misconduct case study in Section 14.

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Texas Office of Court Administration. (2024). Annual Statistical Report for the Texas Judiciary — FY 2024. https://www.txcourts.gov/media/1461502/ar-statistical-fy24.pdf

Official annual statistical report documenting Texas judiciary caseload across all court levels for fiscal year 2024, including probate court filings. Used for caseload context.

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Texas Property Code, Chapter 23A — Uniform Partition of Heirs' Property Act. https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/PR/htm/PR.23A.htm

Primary statutory source for the Texas UPHPA, adopted 2017 and updated by the 89th Legislature (2025). Used for Sections 2 and 6.

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Texas Probate.com. (2013). Changes Affecting Ad Litems in Decedents' Estates and Guardianship. https://texasprobate.com/texas-probate/changes-affecting-ad-litems-in-decedents-estates-and-guardia.html

Practitioner overview of the statutory framework governing ad litem compensation, including the requirement that ad litem fees be taxed as costs and ordered from the estate or a party. Documents the bad-faith cost-shifting authority. Used for Section 10.

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Texas Real Estate Commission. (2025, September 29). Information Regarding Recovery Fund. https://www.trec.texas.gov/public/real-estate-recovery-funds

Official TREC page describing the Real Estate Recovery Trust Account, including the civil-judgment prerequisite for consumer reimbursement and payment caps of $125,000 per transaction and $250,000 per license holder. Used in Section 13 to establish that Texas's existing consumer-protection backstop for realtor misconduct is a post-hoc remedy, not a mechanism for exposing listing concentration before harm occurs — supporting the case for the public reporting reform over a numerical cap.

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Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 18b — Grounds for Recusal and Disqualification of Judges. https://reduceflooding.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Rule-18b-Grounds-for-Recusal-and-Disqualification-of-Judges.pdf

Primary rule text establishing the recusal and disqualification standards for Texas judges, including the reasonable-question-of-impartiality standard, personal bias standard, and financial interest standard. Used for the recusal analysis in Section 12.

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Texas Scorecard. (2025, July 10). Dallas District Judge Sanctioned Twice. https://texasscorecard.com/local/dallas-district-judge-sanctioned-twice/

News reporting on Dallas-area judicial conduct, documenting that more than 100 recusal motions were filed against one Dallas judge in a short period. Used for context on Dallas County judicial oversight failure modes in Section 15.

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Texas State Law Library. (updated 2024). Probate Law Guide — Family Protections. https://guides.sll.texas.gov/probate/family-protections

Official Texas State Law Library guide to family protections in Texas probate, including homestead rights, exempt property, and family allowances. Used for Sections 6 and 7.

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Texas State Law Library. (updated 2024). Probate Law Guide — Will Contests. https://guides.sll.texas.gov/probate/will-contests

Official Texas State Law Library guide to will contest procedures, standing requirements, and legal grounds for contesting a will. Used for Section 11.

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Texas State Law Library. (updated 2024). Probate Law Guide — Formal Administration. https://guides.sll.texas.gov/probate/formal-administration

Official guide to formal estate administration, covering independent vs. dependent administration. Used for Section 9.

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Fox 26 Houston. (2025, November 4). Texas Proposition 12 results: Voters pass amendment changing judicial conduct commission. https://www.fox26houston.com/election/texas-proposition-12-election-results-2025

News report confirming passage of Texas Proposition 12 on November 4, 2025, documenting the specific changes to SCJC composition. Used for Section 15.

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Justia. (2025e). Texas Estates Code § 51.201 — Waiver of Notice of Hearing. https://law.justia.com/codes/texas/estates-code/title-2/subtitle-b/chapter-51/subchapter-e/section-51-201/

Primary statutory source establishing that a legally competent interested person may waive notice of a probate hearing in writing. Used in Section 17 for the analysis of notice, waiver, and clerk-file integrity.

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Texas Constitution and Statutes. (2023). Texas Estates Code § 202.056 — Waiver of Service of Citation. https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/GetStatute.aspx?Code=ES&Value=202.056&Date=3/1/2023

Primary statutory source establishing that a distributee age 16 or older may waive citation in heirship proceedings. Used in Section 17 to distinguish permissible written waiver from missing-file or presumed-waiver problems.

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Texas Legislature Online. (current). Texas Estates Code Chapter 258 — Citations and Notices Relating to Probate of Wills. https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/ES/pdf/ES.258.pdf

Primary statutory source for citation and notice requirements in probate of written wills. Used in Section 17 for the discussion of service, waiver, and the importance of filed proof before the court proceeds.

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Texas Legislature Online. (current). Texas Property Code Chapter 12 — § 12.007, § 12.0071, § 12.008. https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/PR/htm/PR.12.htm

Primary statutory source governing filing, expunction, and cancellation of lis pendens in Texas. Used in Section 17 and Gap 14.

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Texas Courts. (current). Fifth Court of Appeals, Dallas — Writs. https://www.txcourts.gov/5thcoa/

Official court source confirming the Fifth Court of Appeals' writ jurisdiction and filing location. Used in Section 17 for the mandamus remedy discussion.

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Texas Courts. (effective 2017, updated online). Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure. https://www.txcourts.gov/media/1437631/texas-rules-of-appellate-procedure-updated-with-amendments-effective-2117-with-appendices.pdf

Official rule source establishing mandamus procedure in Texas appellate courts and confirming that review may continue in the Texas Supreme Court after the court of appeals acts. Used in Section 17.

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Bexar County Probate Court No. 3. (current). Probate of Will More than 4 Years After Decedent's Death — Court Instructions. https://www.bexar.org/DocumentCenter/View/39899/Probate-of-Will-More-than-4-Years-After-Decedents-Death

County probate court instructions documenting practical filing expectations for service returns and affidavits waiving process and objection, and emphasizing that waivers are for heirs and must be filed. Used in Section 17 as practical evidence of how probate notice protections are supposed to be reflected in the clerk's file.

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San Antonio Real Estate Lawyer. (2026, February 3). Texas Lis Pendens FAQ. https://www.sanantoniorealestatelawyer.com/texas-lis-pendens-faq/

Practitioner summary that accurately tracks Property Code §§ 12.007, 12.0071, and 12.008, including the required contents of the notice, the three-day service requirement, the probable-validity expunction standard, and bond/deposit cancellation. Used to explain the practical operation of lis pendens in Section 17 and Gap 14.

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Texas Constitution and Statutes. (current). Texas Estates Code Chapter 32. https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/GetStatute.aspx?Code=ES&Value=32

Primary statutory source for contested probate transfer doctrine in counties without statutory probate courts. Used in Section 12 to align the venue-transfer proposal with existing Texas transfer logic.

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Justia. (2025f). Texas Government Code § 25.00255 — Recusal or Disqualification of Judge. https://law.justia.com/codes/texas/government-code/title-2/subtitle-a/chapter-25/subchapter-b/section-25-00255/

Primary statutory source for recusal procedure in statutory probate courts, including assignment mechanics and sanction authority. Used in Section 12 and Gap 13.

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Justia. (2025g). Texas Estates Code § 356.001 — Court Order Authorizing Sale. https://law.justia.com/codes/texas/estates-code/title-2/subtitle-h/chapter-356/subchapter-a/section-356-001/

Primary statutory source establishing that estate property generally may not be sold without a court order authorizing the sale. Used in Section 17 to connect notice and title-protection reforms to existing sale procedure.

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Justia. (2025h). Texas Estates Code § 356.551 — Report of Sale of Real Property. https://law.justia.com/codes/texas/estates-code/title-2/subtitle-h/chapter-356/subchapter-l/section-356-551/

Primary statutory source requiring a sworn written report of successful real-property sale terms to be filed with the clerk. Used in Section 17.

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FindLaw. (2025). Texas Estates Code § 356.556 — Order Confirming Sale. https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/estates-code/est-sect-356-556/

Statutory source reflecting the court's duty to confirm a reported real-property sale only if it is fair, properly made, and in conformity with law. Used in Section 17 to shape the proposed notice-and-waiver findings requirement before confirmation.

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Texas Constitution and Statutes. (current). Texas Property Code § 23A.009. https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/GetStatute.aspx?Code=PR&Value=23A.009

Statutory definition source confirming that a "determination of value" under Chapter 23A is a court order under §§ 23A.006 or 23A.010. Used to support the Chapter 23A deadline proposal in Sections 17 and 17.

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Texas Legislative Council. (2022). Texas Legislative Council Drafting Manual. https://tlc.texas.gov/docs/legref/draftingmanual-88.pdf

Official drafting guide used to align the article's recommendations with bill-structuring conventions for amending multiple codes in a single act. Used to support the article's legislation-readiness framing.

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Protecting What’s Yours: Improving Heir and Property Rights Laws in Texas

Protecting What's Yours: Improving Heir and Property Rights Laws in Texas

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

THE FOUNDATION — TEXAS PROPERTY RIGHTS PHILOSOPHY

WILLS AND TESTAMENTARY RIGHTS — WHAT THE LAW PROVIDES

What Makes a Valid Texas Will

Probating a Will — The Four-Year Limit

Testate vs. Intestate — The Fundamental Fork

No-Contest (In Terrorem) Clauses

INTESTATE SUCCESSION — DYING WITHOUT A WILL

The Core Rules

The Estranged Spouse Problem in Intestate Cases

Affidavit of Heirship

TRUSTS — THE STRONGEST SHIELD FOR HEIRS

Why Trusts Are Superior for Heir Protection

Recent Trust Law Updates (2025 — 89th Legislature)

HOMESTEAD RIGHTS AND FAMILY PROPERTY PROTECTIONS

Constitutional Homestead Rights

Family Allowances and Exempt Property

Urban vs. Rural Homestead Size

The Uniform Partition of Heirs' Property Act (UPHPA)

ESTRANGED SPOUSES AND DISINHERITED CHILDREN — WHAT THE LAW ALLOWS

Can You Disinherit Your Spouse?

Can You Disinherit Your Children?

THE POST-DEATH GAP — A CRITICAL HOLE IN HEIR PROTECTION

The "Power Failure" Problem

Temporary Administration — An Imperfect Solution

The Reform Need

EXECUTOR MISCONDUCT — WHAT HEIRS CAN DO

The Fiduciary Duty

What Executors Cannot Legally Do

Remedies Available to Heirs

The Independent vs. Dependent Administration Problem

HEIRS' STANDING TO SUE — EXECUTORS, JUDGES, AND COURT-APPOINTED ATTORNEYS

Suing a Court-Appointed Executor

Suing a Probate Judge

Challenging Court-Appointed Attorney Ad Litem Fees

The Self-Dealing Network Problem — Attorney, Title Company, Realtor

THE "WILL FIRST" REFORM — STOPPING THE WEAPONIZED CONTEST

How the System Gets Exploited

What the Law Currently Says

The "Will First" Reform

VENUE REFORM — REMOVING CASES FROM CORRUPTED LOCAL NETWORKS

The Problem: Removing One Judge Is Not Enough

What Current Law Provides

The Reform: Systemic Bias Transfer to an Adjacent County

The Adjacent-County Transfer Process

Mandatory Public Disclosure of Court Appointment Logs

THE 2027 SESSION REFORMS — AUTOMATIC ESCALATION, PUBLIC REPORTING, AND DIRECT DISCLOSURE

The Judicial Dead-End — Automatic Escalation on Missed Filings

The Probate Realtor Concentration Problem — Public Reporting Rather Than a Cap

Hidden Records and Financial Deception — Direct Delivery of Closing Documents

DALLAS COUNTY PROBATE COURTS — SYSTEMIC ISSUES AND OVERSIGHT GAPS

Court Structure

Documented Structural Deficiency — Staffing

Documented Case: Dallas Probate Judge Misconduct (2018)

Documented Concern: Closed Professional Networks in Probate Court

JUDICIAL MISCONDUCT AND RECUSAL — THE OVERSIGHT SYSTEM

The State Commission on Judicial Conduct (SCJC)

Filing Judicial Complaints

The Recusal Problem in Dallas County

RECENT REFORMS — 89TH LEGISLATURE (2025) AND WHAT CHANGED

Probate Administration Updates

Key Comparison Table

Guardianship Updates

Key Comparison Table

Constitutional Amendments Passed (November 2025)

SB 1448 — Addressing 2023 Reform Gaps

SELF-HELP REMEDIES WHILE THE LAW CATCHES UP

Force the Record — Especially on Chapter 23A Issues

Writ of Mandamus — Emergency Relief from a Higher Court

Lis Pendens — Freezing the Sale Pipeline

Judicial Conduct Complaints

Waivers, Notice, and the Clerk's File

IDENTIFIED GAPS AND RECOMMENDED REFORMS

Gap 1 — The Post-Death Power Vacuum (★ HIGH PRIORITY)

Gap 2 — The Estranged Spouse Intestate Trap (★ HIGH PRIORITY)

Gap 3 — Independent Administration Oversight Vacuum (★ HIGH PRIORITY)

Gap 4 — Dallas County Probate Court Staffing (★ HIGH PRIORITY — LOCAL)

Gap 5 — Judicial Recusal Standards and Network Conflicts