Smith County Transfer on Death Deed (One Tenant in Common, Own Interest, Individual Beneficiaries) Form

A Texas transfer on death deed signed by one tenant in common carries only that owner's undivided share. This form prepares that deed under Chapter 114 of the Texas Estates Code for one transferor who holds a fractional interest alongside one or more co-owners, naming individual beneficiaries for the transferor's share and leaving every other co-owner's interest exactly where it was.

A deed that carries one share and leaves the rest untouched

Section 114.051 authorizes an individual to transfer the individual's interest in real property by a transfer on death deed, and this form is built around that phrase. The transferor recital identifies the signer as the owner of an undivided interest held as a tenant in common, a blank records the fraction the vesting instrument states, and the operative section transfers, at the transferor's death, the undivided interest the transferor then owns, and no other co-owner's interest. The legal description identifies the whole parcel; the fraction identifies the share. A beneficiary who takes under the deed steps into the transferor's place as a tenant in common with the remaining co-owners. A Texas beneficiary deed or TOD deed is this same Chapter 114 instrument under another name.

Why a tenant in common signs alone and revokes alone

Section 114.002(3) defines a joint owner with right of survivorship for Chapter 114 and expressly excludes a tenant in common from the term. The joint owner rules that postpone a deed to the last surviving owner's death and require every living joint owner to join a revocation do not reach this deed. It operates at the transferor's own death, the other co-owners neither sign nor consent, and the transferor alone may revoke it under Section 114.057 by a later recorded transfer on death deed or by an instrument of revocation, a separate instrument recorded on its own and not included in this package. Where two co-owners each designate a beneficiary, each signs a separate deed. Heirs whose deed of distribution vested undivided fractional interests with no survivorship agreement, co-owners who bought together under a deed silent on survivorship, and a purchaser who acquired one co-owner's fraction present the tenant in common pattern this deed recites.

Individual beneficiaries, named one by one

The beneficiary section states as fixed deed text that each beneficiary designated in the deed is an individual, and the blanks take natural persons by full legal name and mailing address, with optional alternates for the case in which no primary beneficiary takes. Chapter 114 reads the word beneficiary broadly enough to include a trust or an entity; this configuration fixes the designation to individuals. Under Section 114.103 a beneficiary takes by surviving the transferor by 120 hours, concurrent beneficiaries take equal and undivided shares with no right of survivorship among them, and the share of a beneficiary who fails to survive lapses and passes under the anti-lapse rules of Chapter 255, which redirect a lapsed share to the descendants of a beneficiary who was a descendant of the transferor or of the transferor's parent.

One signature, one certificate, recorded before death

The form carries one signature block and one acknowledgment certificate in the short form of Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 121.008; acknowledgment has been the sole signing formality since the 2019 amendments removed the witness alternative. Recording before the transferor's death in the county where the property is located is an effectiveness requirement under Section 114.055, and the deed says so on its face above the first blank. A married transferor signs alone, because a deed that transfers nothing during life is not the sale, conveyance, or encumbrance of a homestead that Family Code Section 5.001 requires both spouses to join.

The deed is formatted for the Texas county clerk: letter size within Local Government Code Section 191.007, the Property Code Section 11.008 confidentiality notice in 12 point boldfaced capitals at the top of page one, and a reserved recording band. A non-recorded instructions page at the front describes the exhibit convention for an entry that outgrows its space.

The package includes the fillable transfer on death deed as a PDF, a completed example filled in for a realistic Harris County fact pattern in which one of two siblings designates her children to take her undivided one-half interest, and a plain language guide that walks through each numbered section, signing, and recording. This description and the guide describe the form and the governing statutes in general terms; they are not legal advice.