When an Owner Dies, the Business Goes Through Probate Too

Most Houston business owners have thought about what happens to their company if they retire or sell. Fewer have thought about what happens the week after they die, and that is the gap that tends to surface first.

Houston Probate Attorney, PLLC, a West Houston Chamber member firm, has opened an office in the Energy Corridor at 11111 Katy Freeway, Suite 910, off I-10 at Wilcrest. The practice is built around probate, the court process that moves a person's property to the people who inherit it, and it takes cases from anywhere in Harris County.

"When the owner of a small business dies, the business does not simply pass to the family the next morning," said attorney Kyle Robbins. "The ownership interest is an estate asset. Until the estate is opened, the people trying to keep the doors open often have no clear authority to act."

What Probate Does to a Business Interest

An owner's stake in a company is property, and like a house or a bank account it has to pass through the estate before anyone else can exercise it. Until that happens, the practical problems tend to be immediate rather than legal: who can sign, who can reach the operating account, who can renew the lease or answer a customer.

Which route the estate takes depends on facts that vary case by case, including whether there is a valid will, how the entity itself is structured, and what any operating or partnership agreement already says about a deceased owner's interest. Those documents frequently decide more than the family expects.

For most estates the route is an independent administration or, where there is a valid will and no unpaid debts, a muniment of title. The firm also handles small estate affidavits, affidavits of heirship, intestate succession, will contests and estate litigation.

A Number Before the Work Starts

Probate is one of the few professional services where a client is routinely told to expect an open-ended bill. For uncontested matters, this firm quotes a flat fee at the outset instead of billing by the hour.

"Business owners are used to getting a number before they approve work, and probate is one of the few places they are told to expect an hourly meter instead," Robbins said. "For uncontested matters we quote the fee up front. Where a case is genuinely contested, we bill hourly, because nobody can honestly predict how long a dispute is going to run."

The distinction matters for a family trying to keep a business operating, where the cost of the legal work competes directly with payroll and rent.

Why the Energy Corridor

The firm serves all of Harris County. The neighborhoods closest to the new office come first: the Energy Corridor, Westchase, Memorial City, Spring Branch and Memorial, and west along I-10 through Jersey Village to Katy.

"We took an office in the Energy Corridor because that is where a lot of these families and businesses already are," Robbins said. "Joining the chamber was the same decision. This work comes from people who know you."

Initial consultations are free, and the firm can be reached at (713) 564-8931. Kyle Robbins is licensed in Texas, Bar No. 24105719.

More on how a Harris County probate actually proceeds, which of the five courts hears it and what an executor should gather first is on the firm's website, along with its flat-fee schedule and free consultation.