Texas Wills and Probate
A will and probate are two different things people tend to talk about as one. A will is the document that says what happens to your property. Probate is the Texas court process that turns those instructions into something your executor can actually act on. You can do everything right on the will and still have to go through probate — the two aren't substitutes for each other, and knowing what each one actually requires is what lets you decide how much of the process you want to go through.
This page covers both halves: what Texas Estates Code Chapter 251 requires for a will to be valid, and what happens once that will — or, if there isn't one, Chapter 201's default rules — reaches the courthouse, including the two things that shrink a probate case the most: a self-proving affidavit and a properly funded trust.
What Makes a Will Valid Under Texas Law
Texas Estates Code Section 251.001 sets a low bar for who can make a will at all: anyone of sound mind who is 18 or older, is or has been married, or serves in the U.S. armed forces, an auxiliary branch, or the Maritime Service has the legal right to execute one. Once you qualify, Section 251.002 lets your will dispose of everything you own — every estate, right, title, and interest you hold at death — and gives you the power to disinherit an heir outright or direct how property passes under the will, or, for anything the will doesn't cover, by intestacy.
The document itself has to meet three requirements under Section 251.051: it must be in writing, signed by you personally or by someone else acting in your presence and at your direction, and attested by two or more credible witnesses who are at least 14 years old and sign their own names in your presence. Section 251.052 carves out one exception — a will written entirely in your own handwriting, a holographic will, doesn't need witnesses at all — but that exception only waives the witness requirement; a holographic will still has to be signed by you and still has to meet the same capacity and disposal rules as any other will. Our How to Make a Will page walks through the drafting decisions — naming an executor, beneficiaries, and a guardian — that go inside a will that meets these requirements.
A will that satisfies Section 251.051 can also be made "self-proved" under Sections 251.101 through 251.104 — either when you sign it or at any later point while you and your witnesses are still alive, under Section 251.103. Making a will self-proved means attaching a sworn affidavit from you and your witnesses to the will itself. Section 251.102 spells out why that step is worth taking: a self-proved will can be admitted to probate without tracking down your original witnesses to testify, which matters years later if a witness has moved, died, or simply can't be found. A self-proved will isn't treated as more valid than one that isn't — Section 251.102(b) is explicit that skipping that witness testimony is the only difference.
What Probate Actually Involves
Probate is the court process that turns a will into legal authority. Your executor files the will with the county probate court, and — once the court admits it — receives letters testamentary, the document that actually lets them access accounts, sell property, and distribute the estate the way the will describes; naming someone as executor inside the will doesn't hand them any of that authority on its own. Our Executor Responsibilities page walks through everything the job covers once probate opens, and our Revocable Living Trust vs. Will page breaks down what the process costs, including the executor's statutory commission.
A Will Doesn't Skip Probate — Dying Without One Makes It Worse
Having a valid will doesn't avoid probate by itself — it only tells the court what to do once your estate gets there. What a will does avoid is Chapter 201's default distribution rules, which take over automatically if you die intestate. Under Sections 201.002 and 201.003, your spouse's share depends on whether the property is separate or community and on whether you have children from outside the marriage — in some situations your spouse receives everything, and in others your spouse's share is limited to a fraction of what you own, with the rest passing to your children or other relatives whether or not that's what you would have chosen. Our Dying Without a Will in Texas page walks through the full order of inheritance Chapter 201 sets out.
How to Minimize Probate
A properly funded revocable living trust is the main tool for skipping probate entirely — but only for whatever you actually retitle into the trust before you die; a signed trust document alone accomplishes nothing for property still titled in your own name. Payable-on-death bank accounts and jointly owned property with survivorship rights bypass probate the same way, without needing a trust at all. Our Revocable Living Trust vs. Will page covers what "funded" actually requires, what a trust can do that a will can't, and where a will still beats a trust for a smaller estate.
Where This Fits Into a Full Estate Plan
A will and a self-proving affidavit are two of several documents a complete Texas estate plan typically includes, alongside powers of attorney, medical directives, and a plan for any assets you want to move outside probate altogether. Our Estate Planning Checklist walks through the full list. And if part of what you're protecting is how assets pass to family or how they're managed after you're gone, our pages on Types of Trusts for Estate Planning cover the structures built for exactly that.