Will.com / Power of attorney / Texas
TX · Durable Power of Attorney
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Name someone you trust to handle your finances if you can't. Legally valid in Texas once signed under the Texas signing rules below. Free to create, or add secure online document storage with the $29/year subscription.
Texas POA requirements
Key features in Texas
- All-caps warning notice printed at the head of the statutory form, as part of the form's own text (Tex. Estates Code §752.051)
- 14 power categories with individual initialing
- Explicit durability statement required by law (not presumed)
- Acknowledged before a notary public or another officer authorized under the laws of Texas or another state to take acknowledgments to deeds of conveyance and to administer oaths; §751.0021 names no witness requirement (Tex. Estates Code §751.0021(a)(4))
- If you want your agent to be able to sign home equity loan documents for you, the statutory notice requires you to sign the power of attorney at the office of the lender, an attorney at law, or a title company (Tex. Estates Code §752.051).
- Five specific authorities listed in Tex. Est. Code §751.031(b) (creating, amending, revoking, or terminating an inter vivos trust; making a gift; creating or changing rights of survivorship; creating or changing a beneficiary designation; and delegating authority granted under the power of attorney) may be exercised only if the durable power of attorney expressly grants them. Initialing the 14 standard §752.051 categories, or line (O) for all of them, is not that express grant. Tex. Est. Code §752.052 allows the statutory form to be modified to grant them by adding its GRANT OF SPECIFIC AUTHORITY language, which lists each of the five with its own initial line. The form's SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS section also carries an initial line for a gift sentence, which limits a gift to an individual to the federal gift tax annual exclusion (Tex. Estates Code §752.051).
How it works
- 1
Answer a few questions
About your agent, the powers you want to grant, and when they take effect.
- 2
Download your power of attorney
A complete, personalized document, formatted for Texas.
- 3
Sign and share
Sign in front of a notary. Give a copy to your agent.
Recording your Texas POA
Texas requires a durable power of attorney used for a real property transaction that calls for a recorded instrument to be recorded with the county clerk of the county where the property is located not later than the 30th day after the agent's instrument is filed for recording (Tex. Est. Code §751.151).
The recording office is the office of the county clerk of the county in which the property is located. See Tex. Est. Code §751.151 (a durable power of attorney for a real property transaction requiring the execution and delivery of an instrument that is to be recorded must be recorded not later than the 30th day after the date the instrument is filed for recording) and Tex. Prop. Code §12.001(a) (an instrument concerning real or personal property may be recorded if it has been acknowledged, sworn to with a proper jurat, or proved according to law).
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