Texas Owelty of Partition Agreement

Texas homestead law keeps nearly every voluntary lien off a home. Article XVI, Section 50 of the Texas Constitution lists the only debts a homestead can secure, and Section 50(c) makes any other lien on the homestead invalid. An owelty of partition sits on that short constitutional list. When two co-owners of Texas real property end their co-ownership by setting the entire property aside to one of them, the equalizing payment owed to the other, called the owelty, can be secured by a lien imposed against the entirety of the property by a court order or by a written agreement of the parties to the partition. The Texas Owelty of Partition Agreement is that written agreement.

A lien the homestead admits

The Texas Supreme Court described the doctrine in Sayers v. Pyland (1942): when property is divided into shares of unequal value, the difference is owelty, secured by a lien on the more valuable share in favor of the party receiving the less valuable one, and the owelty is in the nature of purchase money, the same footing as a vendor's lien. The court added that what a court can fix in a partition suit, co-owners can fix for themselves in a voluntary partition by agreement. A 1995 constitutional amendment wrote the rule into Article XVI, Section 50(a)(3), and Property Code Section 41.001(b)(4) repeats it in the statutes: an owelty of partition imposed against the entirety of the property is among the encumbrances that may properly attach to homestead property.

One instrument, three moving parts

The form works in a single recorded instrument. The entirety of the property is set aside and awarded to one co-owner, the Acquiring Owner. The other co-owner, the Relinquishing Owner, conveys the undivided interest with words of grant and without warranty. And the parties impose an owelty of partition in a stated amount against the entirety, expressly reserving a lien in favor of the Relinquishing Owner until the owelty is paid. Because the lien reaches the whole property rather than a half interest, and because it carries purchase-money character, it fits the way title companies and refinance lenders handle a buyout: a lender advancing funds to pay the owelty at closing can take the note and lien by transfer, and the recorded agreement is what the title examiner finds in the chain of title.

Decrees, sibling buyouts, and the two constitutional routes

The constitution recognizes two routes to an owelty lien: a court order, which includes a divorce decree dividing or awarding the family homestead, and a written agreement of the parties to the partition. This form documents the agreement route between two co-owners of record: siblings who inherited a house together, partners who bought together, or former spouses who hold as tenants in common after a divorce. The form carries a joining-spouse signature block for homestead joinder under Family Code Section 5.001, a separate notary certificate for each signer, and the confidentiality notice required by Property Code Section 11.008 at the top of the first page, ready for the county clerk of the county where the property is located.

The download includes the agreement as a fillable PDF, a completed example documenting a Bexar County buyout, and a plain-language guide that walks through every numbered section, the signing formalities, and the recording steps. The materials describe Texas law in general terms and are not legal advice.