Después de firmar su testamento de Texas

What signing did

A Texas will must be in writing, signed by the testator in person or by another person in the testator's presence and under the testator's direction, and attested by two or more credible witnesses who are at least 14 years old and who subscribe their names in their own handwriting in the testator's presence (§251.051). The witnesses need not sign in each other's presence and the will need not be signed at the end; a will written wholly in the testator's handwriting needs no witnesses at all (§251.052).

A notary is not part of a valid will — but it is part of a self-proved one. A will is self-proved when a self-proving affidavit sworn by the testator and the witnesses before an officer authorized to administer oaths is attached to it (§251.104), or when the will is simultaneously executed, attested and made self-proved in the statutory form (§251.1045). A self-proved will may be admitted to probate without the testimony of any subscribing witness (§251.102); an ordinary attested will needs a witness in court, or a deposition, years after the signing.

Texas has no electronic-will statute. The law of electronic signatures expressly does not apply to the creation and execution of wills, codicils or testamentary trusts (Bus. & Com. Code §322.003), so a will is a paper instrument, signed and witnessed in a room. And the signing does not yet pass anything: a will is not effective to prove title to, or the right to possession of, the property it disposes of until it is admitted to probate (§256.001).

The original, and where it lives

The original signed instrument is what the court admits. A copy can be proved only as a will that cannot be produced, by the testimony the statute requires, and a will that was last in the testator's possession and cannot be found is presumed revoked. The original belongs in a place the executor can reach without a court order: a fire-rated cabinet at home that the executor knows about, the drafting attorney's vault with a receipt, or the county clerk.

Texas offers a public repository. A testator, or another person for the testator, may deposit the will with the county clerk of the county of the testator's residence, for the statutory fee, in a sealed wrapper endorsed with the testator's name, address and the name of the person to be notified at death (§252.001; §252.002). The clerk keeps an index, delivers the will only to the testator during life or on the testator's written order, and on notice of the death notifies the person named on the wrapper and delivers the will to the executor or to the court. The deposit is a safe place and nothing more: it has no legal significance and a deposited will is treated no differently at probate (§252.151).

Whoever holds the original has a duty when you die. On receiving notice of the testator's death, the person who has custody of the will shall deliver it to the clerk of the court that has jurisdiction of the estate (§252.201), and a custodian who refuses is liable for the damages the refusal causes (§252.204). A safe-deposit box in your name alone can be slow to open after a death; if the will lives there, let the executor know and consider adding a second signer.

• One signed original; unsigned copies, each marked with where the original is.
• A place the executor can reach: home, the drafter's vault, or the county clerk's deposit (§252.001).
• The custodian's duty at death: deliver the will to the clerk of the court with jurisdiction (§252.201).

Tell the executor what to expect

The person you named is an executor only once the court appoints them; until then they hold a nomination and a document. Tell them now: that they were named, where the original is, who drafted it, what you own and how it is titled, who your advisors are, and whether the will asks for an independent administration — the provision that no other action be had in the probate court than probating the will and returning the inventory (§401.001), which most Texas wills contain and which keeps the estate out of the court's day-to-day supervision.

Give them the shape of the clocks. An application to probate the will is filed with the court; a will may not be admitted to probate after the fourth anniversary of the testator's death unless the applicant proves they were not in default (§256.003). Once the will is admitted, the personal representative gives the statutory notice to each beneficiary named in the will not later than the 60th day after the order (§308.002), and files the inventory, appraisement and list of claims before the 91st day after qualifying unless the court extends the time or an affidavit in lieu is allowed (§309.051). There is no reading of the will; there is an application, an order, letters testamentary and a file.

Keep it current, and know what changes it for you

A written will, or a clause or devise in it, may be revoked only by a subsequent will, codicil or written declaration executed with like formalities, or by the testator destroying or canceling it, or causing it to be destroyed or canceled in the testator's presence (§253.002). A line through a paragraph, a note in the margin or a new wish in an email revokes nothing; a new will or a witnessed codicil does. No court may prohibit you from making a new will, a codicil, or a revocation (§253.001).

Some events change the will without a signature. If, after the will is made, the marriage is dissolved by divorce, annulment or a declaration that it is void, all provisions in the will in favor of the former spouse — and all fiduciary appointments of the former spouse — are read as if the former spouse had failed to survive the testator, unless the will expressly provides otherwise (§123.001). Marriage after the will changes nothing by itself. A child born or adopted after the will who is neither mentioned, provided for in the will, nor otherwise provided for takes the share the pretermitted-child rules describe (§255.052; §255.053) — a reason to re-read the will after every birth.

A move changes the law that governs the estate's administration, not the will's validity: a will executed with Texas's formalities, or with those of the place where it was signed, is generally admissible here (§251.053). What a move does change is the property — community property acquired here, a homestead under this state's rules — and that is the review worth scheduling.

• Revocation only by a later will, a codicil or a written declaration with like formalities, or by physical destruction (§253.002).
• Divorce removes the former spouse and the former spouse's appointments unless the will says otherwise (§123.001).
• A later child may take a statutory share unless provided for (§255.052; §255.053); marriage alone changes nothing.

What a will does not do

A will does not avoid probate; it is the instruction sheet for probate, and it proves nothing until a court admits it (§256.001). It does not reach property that passes by contract or by title: sums in a joint account with a signed survivorship agreement belong to the survivor against the estate (Est. Code §113.151); a payable-on-death or transfer-on-death account, life insurance and a retirement account pass by their designations; real estate under a recorded transfer on death deed passes to the named beneficiary (§114.051); and property already in a trust is administered under the trust. In a community-property state the will disposes of your separate property and your one-half of the community property — not your spouse's half.

A will does not protect assets from creditors, does not manage anything while you are alive or incapacitated, and does not appoint anyone to make medical decisions. Those jobs belong to a durable power of attorney, a medical power of attorney and a directive to physicians, and to the exempt-property rules that stand on their own: the homestead (Prop. Code §41.001), exempt personal property (chapter 42), retirement plans (§42.0021) and insurance and annuity benefits (Ins. Code §1108.051).

What happens at your death

The custodian delivers the will to the clerk of the court with jurisdiction (§252.201) and someone applies to probate it — within four years, as a practical rule (§256.003). A self-proved will is admitted on the application and the affidavit, without a witness (§251.102). Where the estate owes no unpaid debt other than a lien on real estate, or the court finds no other necessity for administration, the will can be admitted as a muniment of title (§257.001): the order itself transfers title, and no executor is appointed. Where there is work to do, letters testamentary issue and the executor administers — independently, if the will so provides (§401.001), with the beneficiary notice (§308.002) and the inventory (§309.051) as the first filings.

The small-estate affidavit is not for a will: it belongs to an intestate estate under $75,000 excluding the homestead and exempt property, after 30 days, with no representative pending (§205.001). An estate with a will takes the will's road — muniment or administration — and the executor's first question is which.

The will and the trust, together

A revocable living trust holds what was funded into it; the will catches the rest. A devise to the trustee of a trust established during the testator's lifetime is valid whatever the existence, size or character of the trust's corpus, provided the trust is identified in the will and its terms are in a written instrument (§254.001) — the pour-over will. The unfunded asset still goes through probate, but it ends up where the trust's terms say.

Some things only a will does. A surviving parent may, by will or written declaration, appoint the guardian of the person of a minor child, and the court shall appoint the person designated (§1104.053). The will names the executor, directs the independent administration, and disposes of the car, the furnishings and the account that was never retitled. A trust without a will leaves those gaps open; a will without a trust leaves everything to probate. Most Texas plans use both, and the two are reviewed together.

If you have not signed yet, or need a change

An unsigned draft disposes of nothing, and a will is changed only by an instrument executed with the same formalities (§253.002). Whether a will alone fits, how community and separate property should be characterized, what a blended family or a beneficiary on public benefits needs, and whether the homestead should pass by will, by trust or by a transfer on death deed are questions for a licensed Texas attorney of your choosing — TrusteeClear organizes the record a signed Texas trust creates and explains what the statutes say; it does not draft or review your plan.

Where the will pours over into a trust, the successor trustee's work is where this product lives: the duties packet, the certification of trust, the deadline table that keeps the estate's clocks apart from the trust's, the asset record and the accounting the beneficiaries may demand.