A proceeding to determine heirship is used where a person who owns real or personal property in Texas dies without a will, and there has been no administration of the estate. This is a good procedure to clean up land titles where there is nothing else to be done in the estate. It is not suitable where someone must have the authority to collect the assets of the deceased, pay bills and distribute property among the heirs.

The end result of this process is to make the rightful heirs the (joint) owners of the deceased's property.

1. An heirship determination is started by filing an application in the proper court in the county where the deceased lived or in which he or she owned property. The application must contain the affidavit of each applicant as to the decedent's family situation and his or her heirs and be accompanied by a filing fee.
2. All heirs must receive notice of the proceeding. Heirs must either sign the application as applicants, be personally served with citation, or sign a waiver of receipt of the citation. The Court requires notice to any unknown person who may claim to be an heir to be made by posting a notice at the courthouse and in a local newspaper where legal notices are published.
3. The court will generally appoint an “attorney ad litem” to investigate to see if there are any other heirs who are unknown or who were not mentioned in the application.
4. We will need to prepare statements for two witnesses to testify regarding the family history of the decedent. Preferably these should be disinterested witnesses who do not stand to inherit from the deceased, but knew the decedent for a long enough period of time to become well acquainted with the family.
5. A very short hearing will be scheduled, at which the following will happen:
   1. The witnesses will testify in open court as to the decedent's family situation and heirs. At the conclusion of each of the witnesses' testimony, the witness will sign, in open court, a document setting out the testimony in writing.
   2. The judge will sign an order declaring the heirs to the estate of the deceased.
6. We file the order determining the heirs in the deed records of any county where the decedent had property, with the end result that those listed as heirs will then be joint owners of record of the property.

1. An applicant who will inherit from the estate, or otherwise meets the requirements listed in the Texas Probate Code:
   1. A qualified personal representative of the estate,
   2. A person claiming to be a secured creditor,
   3. A person claiming to be the owner of the whole or a part of the estate, or
   4. A guardian of the estate of a ward if a guardianship was pending at the time of the death of the ward.
   5. Although it does not use the term “interested in the estate”, the categories generally list those people with a direct financial interest.
2. A copy of the death certificate
3. Family information
   1. Dates and spouses of all marriages
   2. Names and addresses of all children, living or deceased, and of all children of deceased children (grandchildren)
4. Filing fees
5. Two witnesses to testify in open court regarding family background information.
6. A list of all property owned at the time of death