Texas estate planning

Texas estate planning documents

Texas Will & Trust helps Texas residents prepare a Last Will and Testament, Transfer on Death Deed, durable and medical powers of attorney, HIPAA release, Directive to Physicians, and guardianship declarations through guided questionnaires.

Each guide below explains what the document does under Texas practice, when people use it, and how signing or recording usually works. Then you can start the questionnaire and generate a Word file from an attorney-reviewed template.

Documents you can prepare

• Estate planning

  Texas Last Will and Testament

  A Texas Last Will and Testament lets you say who manages your estate, who inherits your property, and who should care for minor children. If you die without a will, Texas intestacy rules — not your family — decide those outcomes.

• Property & estate

  Texas Transfer on Death Deed (TODD)

  A Texas Transfer on Death Deed (TODD) lets you name beneficiaries for Texas real property while you are alive. You keep full ownership and control. The property generally transfers at death without a probate proceeding for that real estate.

• Estate planning

  Texas Durable Power of Attorney

  A durable power of attorney lets you appoint an agent to handle financial and legal matters for you. “Durable” means the authority can continue if you become incapacitated — which is the point of using one in an estate plan.

• Healthcare

  Texas Medical Power of Attorney

  A Texas Medical Power of Attorney lets you name a health care agent to make medical decisions if a physician certifies that you can no longer make them yourself. It is one of the core incapacity documents alongside a Directive to Physicians and a HIPAA release.

• Healthcare

  Texas HIPAA Release (Individual)

  A HIPAA authorization lets doctors, hospitals, and insurers share your protected health information with the people you name. Without it, privacy rules can block a spouse, adult child, or trustee from getting records even when they are trying to help.

• Healthcare

  Texas Directive to Physicians (Living Will)

  A Directive to Physicians and Family or Surrogates — often called a living will — lets you state treatment preferences if you have a terminal condition or irreversible condition and cannot speak for yourself.

• Estate planning

  Texas Declaration of Guardian for an Adult

  A Declaration of Guardian lets you say, in advance, whom you want as guardian of your person, your estate, or both if a court ever finds that you need one. It is a preference document — the court still has to appoint a guardian — but Texas courts generally give it significant weight.

• Estate planning

  Texas Appointment of Guardian for Children

  An Appointment of Guardian for Children lets Texas parents name who should care for their minor children and who should manage the children’s property if the parents die or become incapacitated.