Your family will inherit your house. Will they inherit a court case with it?
This book shows you how Texas homeowners pass the house to the people they choose, without probate, while keeping full control of it for the rest of their lives.
- Keep your house, your mortgage and your tax exemptions exactly as they are
- Sell it, borrow on it or change your mind any time, without asking anyone
- When you’re gone, it passes to the people you named. No judge.
$20 paperback, plus shipping. Printed and shipped to your door by Lulu.
Your family is at the kitchen table. Somebody asks, “So what do we do now?”
That conversation can go two ways.
Where’s the deed? Did Mom have a will? Is this the newest one? Who do we call? That conversation turns into months of probate and thousands of dollars.
“Dad already handled this.” Somebody pulls the binder out of the safe. The house already belongs to the people he named. There’s nothing to take to court.
Same family. Same love. The only difference is the plan.
A Lady Bird Deed is the simplest way I know to give your family the second morning. Most Texans have never heard of it.
Three things most Texans believe about their house
Each one sounds right. Each one has cost Texas families their peace of mind, and sometimes their home.
Think of it as the meal you leave your family
Picture your family making your favorite meal the morning after your funeral. For your home, Texas families have four main choices.
Do nothing
No recipe and no groceries. Texas law decides who gets your house, and a court has to approve it.
A will
The recipe. Your family still has to go to the grocery store, and the store is the probate court.
A trust
The recipe and the groceries. Powerful, and sometimes just right. It costs more, and it only works if the house is put into it.
A Lady Bird Deed
The meal, already cooked and on the table. You handle it now. When you’re gone, the house passes to the people you named.
Here’s some of what you’ll learn
Thirty-three chapters, each one a question a real Texan has asked, each one opening with the short answer.
- The one word your deed must contain, and the look-alike deed that hands your children a say in your home (Ch. 6)
- Why both names on the deed can leave a widow co-owning her house with stepchildren (Ch. 2)
- The four-year deadline that turns a valid will into “ink on paper” (Ch. 3)
- Whether you can still sell, borrow or change your mind after you sign (Ch. 9)
- What happens to your mortgage and the “due-on-sale” clause (Ch. 10)
- How to keep your homestead and over-65 exemptions (Ch. 11)
- Why handing the house to your kids now can cost them in taxes, and how a “stepped-up basis” can save them (Ch. 13 and 20)
- How Medicaid estate recovery works, and where a Lady Bird Deed fits under the current rules (Ch. 16 and 17)
- When you can sign one for a parent with a power of attorney, and what the power of attorney has to say (Ch. 18)
- Lady Bird Deed or Transfer on Death Deed: the side-by-side comparison (Ch. 19)
- What a deed can’t cover: minerals, rent houses and land owned by an LLC (Ch. 21)
- What happens if a child gets divorced, or is on disability benefits, after inheriting (Ch. 23 and 24)
- Whether those title-lock services really protect your house, and what does (Ch. 29)
- The mistakes I see most often on deeds people prepare themselves (Ch. 32)
You can read it in an evening.
About an hour and a half, cover to cover. It opens with the story of Dave and Donna, a Texas couple who go from a kitchen table covered in court papers to a deed that’s signed and recorded. Then it answers your questions one at a time.
At the end of each part, a mockingbird named Birdie repeats what matters most:
- Doing nothing is a decision.
- It’s still your house. Sell it, borrow on it, paint the kitchen red. You don’t have to ask anybody.
- Don’t deed the house to your kids. Hang on to the keys.
In the back: a seven-question “Is a Lady Bird Deed a Fit?” self-check, twelve situations to raise with an attorney before you sign, a “Ducks in a Row” checklist and a plain-English glossary.
Because I’d rather you read it before your family needs it.
Most of the probate cases I see involve good people with one house and a family that gets along. Many of them could have been avoided with a simple deed signed years earlier. The families just didn’t know it existed.
So I put what I teach in my Lady Bird Deed classes into one short book. It costs $20, and Lulu prints a copy and ships it to your door.
— Cole F. Watson, J.D.
- You own a home or land in Texas, wherever you live now
- You want it to pass to family without probate
- You want to keep full control while you’re alive
- You’re helping a parent get their affairs in order
- You have wills and assumed that was enough
- Your only property is outside Texas. A deed follows the land, and other states have their own rules.
- You want a plan for your specific family. The book is legal information. For a plan designed around your family, book an Estate Planning Design Meeting with Cole.
“Probate happens to the people who planned on someday.”
For most healthy people, there’s no emergency. But some doors close with time: the four-year deadline to use a will, your ability to sign your own papers, and the people who remember the facts behind an old deed. The book takes an evening. Start there.
Before you order
What does it cost?
$20 for the paperback, plus shipping. Lulu shows the shipping cost for your address at checkout, before you pay. There’s nothing else you have to buy.
Who prints and ships it?
Lulu, our printer. Lulu prints your copy when you order, ships it to the address you enter at checkout, and emails you about your order.
I don’t live in Texas. Is this for me?
If you own land in Texas, yes. Texas law decides what happens to land in Texas, no matter where the owner lives.
Can I use it to help my parents?
Yes. Chapter 18 covers signing a Lady Bird Deed for a parent with a power of attorney, including the limits on what an agent can do.
Is this legal advice?
No. The book is general information about Texas law. Reading it doesn’t create an attorney-client relationship. Every family is different, so talk with a licensed Texas attorney about yours before you sign anything.
Get your copy
$20 paperback, plus shipping.
- Paperback
- Printed on order
- Shipped by Lulu
Secure checkout by Lulu, our printer. Lulu emails your receipt.
P.S. If you read only one chapter, read Chapter 2. It covers the mistake I see more than any other in Texas, and it takes a few minutes.
This page and the book provide general information about Texas law, not legal advice, and do not create an attorney-client relationship. Attorney responsible for this content: Cole F. Watson, J.D., Watson Law Firm. Primary practice location: Iowa Park, Texas. © 2026 Cole F. Watson.