Agents say it out of habit at almost every closing: "don't worry, the exemption carries over." It doesn't. Under Texas law, the residence homestead exemption is tied to the person who owns and occupies the property as their principal residence — not to the property itself. When a home sells, the seller's exemption doesn't move to the buyer. The buyer has to qualify and file for their own, from scratch, after closing.
The short answer
Nothing about a homestead exemption is deed-attached. It isn't recorded against the property, it isn't disclosed on the Seller's Disclosure Notice, and title doesn't carry it forward. A new owner who does nothing after closing will simply be taxed on the full appraised value of the home the following year — no $140,000 school-district exemption, no over-65 or disability add-on, nothing — until they file their own application.
What Tax Code Sec. 11.13 actually grants
Tax Code Sec. 11.13 is the statute that creates the exemption in the first place, and its structure explains why it can't transfer. Sec. 11.13(b) requires school districts to exempt $140,000 of a residence homestead's appraised value from school taxes. Sec. 11.13(c) adds an additional $60,000 school-tax exemption for owners age 65 or older or disabled. Sec. 11.13(a) provides a separate, smaller $3,000 exemption from certain county-purpose taxes. All of it depends on Sec. 11.13(j)(1)'s definition of a residence homestead: a structure "used as a residence" and "occupied as the individual's principal residence by an owner." The exemption is a benefit that attaches to a qualifying owner-occupant, not a feature of the parcel. Sec. 11.13(h) reinforces this by capping any one person to a single homestead exemption at a time — another sign the law is tracking the person, not the address.
Why the qualification date matters: Sec. 11.42
Tax Code Sec. 11.42(a) sets the baseline rule: eligibility for an exemption in a given tax year is determined by the claimant's qualifications as of January 1 of that year. A buyer who closes in June doesn't retroactively qualify for that January 1 snapshot — the seller (or whoever owned and occupied the home on January 1) was the one who qualified, if anyone did. Sec. 11.42(f) carves out a narrow exception: a buyer who acquires a homestead after January 1 can receive the exemption for the remaining part of that same tax year, but only if the previous owner did not already claim the same exemption for that year. In practice, most sellers who lived in the home did claim it, so this exception rarely helps the buyer in the year of purchase — the buyer's own exemption realistically starts the following tax year.
What the buyer actually has to do: Sec. 11.43 and Form 50-114
Tax Code Sec. 11.43(a) requires a person claiming most exemptions, including the residence homestead exemption, to apply for it by filing a completed application with the chief appraiser of the appraisal district where the property is located. The form is the Comptroller's Form 50-114, Application for Residence Homestead Exemption — the same form covers the general homestead exemption plus the age-65, disabled, and disabled-veteran variants, and it's filed with the county appraisal district, not the Comptroller's office. Sec. 11.43(d) sets the general filing window: before May 1 of the tax year for which the exemption is claimed for someone who owned the home on January 1, or before the first anniversary of the acquisition date for someone (like most home buyers) who acquires the property after January 1. Filing after that window doesn't necessarily forfeit the exemption outright — appraisal districts routinely process late homestead applications for a period of years after the filing deadline — but a buyer shouldn't count on that grace period; the clean path is filing promptly after closing.
What actually does carry over at closing: the tax proration
This is the piece that gets confused with the exemption "transferring." It doesn't — what happens instead is a one-time proration of the tax bill for the year of sale. Paragraph 13 (Prorations) of the current One to Four Family Residential Contract, TREC No. 20-19 (effective 07/01/2026), states that taxes for the current year are prorated through the closing date, and that the proration "may be calculated taking into consideration any change in exemptions that will affect the current year's taxes." That's a math adjustment between buyer and seller at the closing table for that one tax year — based on whatever exemption status applied to the home during the year of sale — not a transfer of the exemption itself going forward. Because the actual tax bill for the closing year often isn't final at the time of closing, contracts frequently prorate on an estimate and leave the door open to true up once the real bill arrives, which is a separate negotiation from anything the exemption itself controls.
Over-65, disabled, and other special exemptions
The same rule applies to the enhanced exemptions. If the seller was 65 or older, or qualified as disabled, and received the additional Sec. 11.13(c) exemption or a school-tax ceiling tied to that status, none of it passes to the buyer. The buyer has to independently qualify (based on their own age or disability status) and file their own application to get any of it. A seller who is 65+ and buys a new Texas homestead may be able to carry a tax-ceiling benefit forward to their own new home — that's a separate portability concept for the same person moving, and it has its own filing process through the appraisal district. It has nothing to do with what a buyer inherits from that seller's old home.
The seller's side: a notification duty, not a transfer
Tax Code Sec. 11.43(g) puts a duty on the person who received an exemption not required to be claimed annually (which includes the general homestead exemption) to notify the appraisal office in writing before May 1 after their entitlement to the exemption ends. Selling and moving out is exactly the kind of event that ends entitlement. In practice, appraisal districts often catch a sale through the recorded deed and update their own records, but the statutory duty to speak up sits with the person whose entitlement ended — worth a mention to a selling client who's moving to a new Texas homestead, since they'll need to make sure the exemption gets removed from the old address and applied to the new one rather than lingering (or worse, getting flagged) on a home they no longer own or occupy.
- Tell buyers at closing, not months later: the exemption doesn't come with the house. Filing Form 50-114 with the county appraisal district is on them.
- Flag the deadline: generally before May 1 of the following tax year, or before the first anniversary of the purchase date if they want to try for the Sec. 11.42(f) partial-year exception (which only works if the seller didn't already claim it that year).
- Don't confuse the Paragraph 13 proration with the exemption transferring — that's a one-time closing math adjustment for the year of sale, not an ongoing benefit.
- For a selling client moving within Texas, remind them the Sec. 11.43(g) notification duty and the new application on their next home are both on them, not automatic.
- Over-65, disabled, and disabled-veteran add-ons never transfer either — the buyer has to independently qualify and file, full stop.