If you live outside of Texas but own property inside of Texas, your estate plan will likely be subject to the ancillary probate process. Ancillary probate is the legal process through which a non-state resident gets his estate plan (only as the plan relates.to in-state property) approved by a state probate court. For example, if you live in Colorado but have a vacation home in Texas, your estate administrator will have to use a Texas probable court in order to transfer the vacation home to a beneficiary when you die.
Ancillary Probate
Ancillary probate in Texas is relatively straightforward. It requires a probate application in Texas, typically filed at the same time as the regular probate application filed in the decedent’s state of residence. In our Colorado example, the decedent’s estate would go through probate in Colorado and, simultaneously, would go through ancillary probate in Texas for the vacation home.
The state of Texas requires ancillary probate for real property and business interests in Texas-based companies. Other types of asserts, whether bank accounts, investment accounts, or retirement accounts, stay in the decedent’s residential state. Importantly, the “residential state” is the individual’s home state at the time that he or she died.