Houston Estate Planning and Elder Law Attorney Blog

What Happens to a Single-Member Texas LLC When the Owner Dies

Published on: October 29, 2026 | By McCulloch & Miller, PLLC

Many Houston business owners hold a consulting practice, a rental property, or a small trade business in a one-member limited liability company formed online in an afternoon. Many of those formation documents say little or nothing about what happens when the one member dies. Texas fills the gap with default rules in the Business Organizations Code, and those rules separate the right to the company’s money from the right to run it.

When the sole member of a Texas LLC dies, the member’s heirs, devisees, surviving spouse, or personal representative become assignees of the membership interest, entitled to its distributions but not to manage the company. With no member left to admit them, the company must wind up unless, within one year, the member’s legal representative or successor agrees to continue the company and become a member or designate one. McCulloch & Miller, PLLC builds these successor provisions into plans for owners through its estate planning for business owners.

What an Heir Inherits From a Texas LLC

What a Trust Protector Can Do in a Texas Trust

Published on: October 27, 2026 | By McCulloch & Miller, PLLC

A trust written to last for decades in Texas will outlive the assumptions behind it. Trustees die, resign, or stop doing the job well, and tax law can change several times over the life of a single trust. Texas allows the person creating the trust to name someone with authority to respond to those changes later, without a court proceeding, by writing a trust protector into the document.

A trust protector in Texas is a person the trust terms give power to oversee or adjust the trust, and the Property Code treats a protector as a type of trust advisor. The trust can authorize a protector to remove and appoint trustees and to amend the trust’s terms for tax or administrative purposes. Texas generally treats a protector as a fiduciary. McCulloch & Miller, PLLC drafts protector provisions for Austin families as part of its trust planning practice.

How Texas Law Defines a Trust Protector

Transferring a Car Title in Texas When a Parent Dies Without a Will

Published on: October 24, 2026 | By McCulloch & Miller, PLLC

Transferring a Car Title in Texas When a Parent Dies Without a Will

A car titled in a parent’s name is often the first estate asset a Texas family has to deal with, since it still needs insurance and registration. When the parent left no will and no one has opened a probate case, heirs at the county tax office are sometimes told the title cannot move without court papers. For many families, Texas provides a simpler route that applies to the vehicle alone.

To transfer a car title after a death in Texas without probate, the heirs can complete the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles’ Affidavit of Heirship for a Motor Vehicle, Form VTR-262. They file it with an application for a new title at the county tax assessor-collector’s office. The route is available when there has been no administration of the estate and none is necessary. McCulloch & Miller, PLLC handles these transfers for heirs in Dallas and across Texas as part of its probate practice.

The Statute Behind the Heirship Affidavit

The Two Tax Returns a Texas Executor Has to File

Published on: October 19, 2026 | By McCulloch & Miller, PLLC

An executor in a Texas probate case usually spends the first months on letters testamentary, the inventory, and notice to creditors. Federal income tax tends to come later, and it often comes as a surprise, because the year of death produces two income tax returns rather than one. Texas has no state income tax, so both are federal, and both are the executor’s responsibility.

The first executor tax return in Texas is the decedent’s final Form 1040, covering income up to the date of death. The second is Form 1041, the estate’s own income tax return, for income the estate receives after death, such as interest, dividends, or rent. Federal law makes the executor responsible for both.

In an estate that cannot pay all of its debts, an executor who distributes assets before the federal tax is paid can end up personally liable for it. McCulloch & Miller, PLLC guides Houston executors through this part of probate alongside the court filings.

Keeping the Over-65 Property Tax Ceiling After a Spouse Dies in Texas

Published on: October 16, 2026 | By McCulloch & Miller, PLLC

Texas property tax law gives homeowners 65 and older an extra school tax exemption and a ceiling that freezes the school taxes on their homestead. When the older spouse in a Houston household dies, the younger spouse can lose part of that protection and keep part of it, and which part depends on the survivor’s age and on what the couple’s taxing units had adopted. The difference can show up on the next tax statement as a bill well above the last one.

A surviving spouse who was 55 or older when the qualifying spouse died, and who still lives in the home, keeps the school tax ceiling under Tax Code § 11.26(i). The survivor also keeps any local-option over-65 exemption the deceased spouse had from a city, county, or other taxing unit. What does not carry over is the $60,000 school district exemption, which belongs only to an owner who is 65 or older or disabled. McCulloch & Miller, PLLC addresses these questions with surviving spouses as part of its estate planning and estate administration work.

What an Over-65 Homeowner Receives in Texas

When a Sibling on a Parent’s Bank Account Says the Money Is Theirs

Published on: October 13, 2026 | By McCulloch & Miller, PLLC

Adult children in Texas are often added to an aging parent’s checking account so one of them can pay the bills. After the parent dies, that same arrangement can split a family when the child on the account treats the balance as an inheritance while the will divides everything equally. Texas answers the ownership question by statute, and the answer turns on the paperwork the parent signed at the bank.

A joint bank account passes to the surviving account holder after death in Texas only if the parent signed a written agreement creating a right of survivorship. A child added only as a convenience signer has no right of survivorship at all, and the money in that account belongs to the parent’s estate. McCulloch & Miller, PLLC sorts out these account disputes for families in Dallas and across Texas as part of its probate practice.

Convenience Signer or Joint Owner Under Texas Law

Pooled Trusts and Texas Medicaid After Age 65

Published on: October 7, 2026 | By McCulloch & Miller, PLLC

Texas Medicaid allows a person receiving long-term care to keep only $2,000 in countable resources, and families with an older relative who has modest savings above that line often hear that a special needs trust is the answer. For a person 65 or older, the usual first-party special needs trust is no longer available. A pooled trust is, but Texas treats money placed into one after 65 differently from money placed in earlier, and that difference shapes whether the trust helps.

A pooled trust is a trust run by a nonprofit association that keeps a separate account for each disabled beneficiary and pools those accounts for investment. Federal law places no age limit on joining one. Texas Medicaid does not count the account as a resource, but its handbook applies transfer-of-assets rules to money contributed for a person who is 65 or older, which can create a period of Medicaid ineligibility. McCulloch & Miller, PLLC advises Austin families on this trade-off through its special needs planning practice.

Why the Age of 65 Changes the Options

Why a Parent’s Texas Medicaid Nursing Home Payment Changes in January

Published on: October 2, 2026 | By McCulloch & Miller, PLLC

estate planning with a cognitive decline

Social Security and Supplemental Security Income benefits will rise 3.6 percent in 2027, the Social Security Administration announced on October 14, 2026. For a Texas parent whose nursing home care is paid by Medicaid, the raise usually does not turn into spending money. It changes two figures a family should check before January, the amount the parent pays the nursing home each month and the income limit that decides whether the parent qualifies.

Texas Medicaid requires a nursing home resident to pay most of their own monthly income to the facility as a co-payment, keeping a small personal needs allowance. When the Social Security check goes up, the co-payment usually goes up with it. The Texas Medicaid income limit for 2027 is tied to the SSI rate and rises as well, though Texas has not yet published the new number. McCulloch & Miller, PLLC reviews these annual changes with Houston families as part of its Medicaid crisis planning work.

What Social Security Announced for 2027

What Medicare’s Fall Enrollment Window Changes for a Parent in Care

Published on: September 28, 2026 | By McCulloch & Miller, PLLC

Last updated September 28, 2026 · Reviewed by Thomas W. McCulloch

Medicare’s annual enrollment period opens on October 15, and for Texas families managing a parent’s coverage it arrives with a mailbox full of plan comparisons. Where that parent is already in a nursing home, or likely to need one soon, the decision carries a cost that the plan brochures do not describe. The choice made before December 7 governs the parent’s medical coverage for the following year and can close off supplemental coverage later.

Medicare Open Enrollment in Texas runs from October 15 through December 7, and changes take effect January 1. It lets a beneficiary move between Original Medicare and a Medicare Advantage plan and change drug coverage. It does not change the federal rule barring Part A and Part B payment for long-term custodial care. McCulloch & Miller advises families across Houston and Texas on Texas elder law questions like this one, where a medical decision and a long-term care cost arrive in the same season.

Refusing an Inheritance in Texas Within the Nine-Month Window

Published on: September 24, 2026 | By McCulloch & Miller, PLLC

Last updated September 24, 2026 · Reviewed by Thomas W. McCulloch

Texas law allows a person who stands to receive property at someone’s death to refuse it, whether the property would pass under a will, without a will, or through a beneficiary designation. The refusal has to satisfy two separate bodies of law at once. Texas property law decides whether the refusal works. Federal tax law decides whether the heir is treated as having made a gift, and only the federal rules carry a deadline.

A person may disclaim an inheritance in Texas under Chapter 240 of the Texas Property Code, which Estates Code § 122.002 adopts for property passing at death. For federal estate and gift tax purposes, the refusal must also be a qualified disclaimer under 26 U.S.C. § 2518, made in writing, received within nine months, and made before the heir accepts any benefit from the property. McCulloch & Miller works through these decisions with families in Dallas and across Texas as part of its probate practice, often in the first weeks after a death, when the clock is already running.