In April 2025, Marcus Webb sat across from a probate attorney in McKinney and asked a question he thought had an obvious answer. His father had died in January, naming Marcus's older sister Diane as independent executor of an estate that included a house in Frisco, two retirement accounts, a brokerage account, and — Marcus suspected — at least one bank account that had been quietly drained in the months before his father's death. Diane had been appointed executor within three weeks of the funeral. Then nothing happened.
By April, ninety-two days had passed since the letters testamentary were issued. No inventory of the estate had been filed with the court. Marcus had called Diane twice. She had not returned either call.
"Can we file to have her removed?" Marcus asked.
The attorney looked at him carefully. "For missing the inventory deadline? The law isn't set up the way you're thinking it is."
The Mistake Almost Every Family Makes First
This conversation happens more often than probate attorneys let on. Texas beneficiaries who discover that an executor has missed the inventory filing deadline almost universally assume that the failure is a straightforward basis for a removal petition. It is a ground for removal — but it is a ground that Texas law reserves specifically for the court to raise on its own motion. A beneficiary who files a petition invoking that ground alone is not using the wrong tone. They are invoking the wrong subsection of the statute.
The distinction matters because the difference between a meritorious petition and a procedurally flawed one is months of delay, unnecessary attorney's fees, and a result that is sometimes worse than the starting point. Understanding what the law actually allows — and what it does not — is the difference between effective action and an expensive detour.
What the Inventory Requirement Actually Is
The inventory requirement for Texas independent executors is in Tex. Est. Code § 309.051. Within ninety days after letters testamentary are granted, an independent executor must file with the probate court a verified inventory of all estate property, an appraisement of that property at fair market value as of the date of the decedent's death, and a list of all claims the estate holds against others.
The inventory is not a formality. It is the foundational accountability document for every Texas estate administration. Without it:
- Beneficiaries cannot confirm that estate assets have been identified and preserved.
- They cannot verify the values that will determine each heir's ultimate share.
- They cannot detect an asset that existed at death and has since disappeared.
- They cannot calculate whether the estate is solvent — whether there is enough to pay creditors before any distributions reach the beneficiaries.
Ninety days is a tight window by the standards of most estate administrations. Gathering financial statements, valuing real property, determining the scope of an investment portfolio, and locating all of a decedent's accounts can take longer than executors anticipate. Many late inventories reflect organizational challenges rather than concealment. But the deadline exists for a reason: the court and the beneficiaries are entitled to a baseline picture of the estate within three months of the executor's appointment. When that deadline passes with nothing filed, beneficiaries are operating blind.
The Counterintuitive Rule About Removal
Texas Estates Code § 404.0035 governs the removal of independent executors — and its structure is the thing most families get wrong.
Subsection (a) lists grounds on which the probate court may remove an executor. One of those grounds, in § 404.0035(a)(2), is explicit: the executor may be removed for "failure to return by the 91st day after the executor qualifies, any inventory, appraisement, and list of claims required by Chapter 309."
That language appears to solve Marcus's problem entirely. Until you read the subsection header: subsection (a) authorizes the court to act on its own motion. The list of grounds in (a) is not a menu of tools for beneficiaries. It is the list of reasons a court can reach for when it decides to initiate removal proceedings itself — without waiting for anyone to file a petition.
Subsection (b) is the provision that allows an interested person — a beneficiary, an heir, a creditor — to petition for removal. But subsection (b) carries its own list of grounds, and that list is different. The grounds available under § 404.0035(b) include:
- Gross misconduct or gross mismanagement of the estate
- Material conflict of interest between the executor and the estate
- Incapacity
- Failure to timely file an affidavit required under § 309.056
The failure to file the inventory by the 91st day — the ground in § 404.0035(a)(2) — is not listed in subsection (b). An interested person cannot independently petition for removal by pointing at the inventory deadline alone.
This is the legal reality that surprises most Texas families. The 91-day inventory failure is a meaningful statutory event. It is a ground for removal. It is just not a ground that puts the removal petition in a beneficiary's hands. Separately, Tex. Est. Code § 404.003 allows removal without notice to the executor — but only on two narrow grounds: the executor cannot be served, or there is evidence the executor has misapplied or embezzled estate property, or is about to. The inventory deadline is not a § 404.003 ground either.
What Beneficiaries Can Actually Do
The fact that § 404.0035(a)(2) belongs to the court does not leave a beneficiary without options. The options are different from what most people first reach for — and in many cases, more effective.
Step One: Written Demand — Essential Before Anything Else
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Before any court filing, a beneficiary should document the concern in writing. A certified letter to the executor — sent to their last known address and to their attorney of record if one has appeared — creates a record and starts a clock. Many executors who have missed the inventory deadline are disorganized, not malicious. A direct written demand resolves a significant number of these situations without litigation.
The letter should be specific: the inventory was due on [date], that deadline has passed, and you are requesting that it be filed within fourteen (or twenty-one) days. Keep copies of everything. Any subsequent inaction by the executor, after written notice, becomes evidence of a pattern — which matters greatly if a court filing becomes necessary.
Step Two: Motion to Compel the Inventory
A probate court has supervisory authority over estate administration. A beneficiary can file a motion requesting that the court issue an order directing the executor to file the inventory within a specified time. This is not a removal petition — it is a compliance order, and it leaves the executor in place while requiring action.
Courts routinely grant these motions. They are often resolved without a contested hearing because the executor files the inventory before the hearing date arrives. A motion to compel is frequently the correct first court filing when the inventory is late. It keeps removal available as a next step if the executor fails to comply, while creating an opportunity to resolve the delay without the cost and uncertainty of a contested hearing.
Step Three: Removal Petition Under § 404.0035(b)
If the inventory failure is part of a larger pattern — unauthorized distributions, communications that have stopped, assets that appear to have been liquidated without authorization, a visible conflict of interest between the executor and the estate — the facts may support a removal petition under subsection (b). Gross mismanagement of an estate is a broad standard, and a court evaluating repeated failures to comply with statutory obligations has flexibility in characterizing the conduct.
The critical point is that the petition must be grounded in language that § 404.0035(b) recognizes. A petition that cites the inventory deadline as its statutory basis will face an immediate objection: that ground is the court's own tool, not the petitioner's. Building the petition around the facts that constitute gross misconduct or gross mismanagement — with the late inventory as one data point among several — is how the correct procedural path looks.
If removal succeeds, the court will appoint a successor administrator to complete the administration. For an overview of how removal proceedings work once the procedural threshold is met, see our article on how to remove an executor in Texas.
Why the Delay Matters Beyond the Technicality
A missing inventory is almost never the only problem. The window between death and inventory filing is when unauthorized asset movement is easiest to accomplish and hardest to detect. Banks and financial institutions release account information to an executor on presentation of letters testamentary. Executors can sell property, liquidate accounts, and redirect funds during the administration period. Without an inventory that captures the estate's assets as of the date of death, there is no baseline against which to measure whether assets have disappeared.
This is not a hypothetical concern. Texas probate litigation disproportionately involves disputes that trace back to the gap between the date of death and the date any court document cataloged what the estate contained. The inventory is designed to close that gap. When it is missing, the gap stays open — and any movement of assets during that period becomes harder to trace and harder to challenge once discovered.
For a full picture of what an independent executor is required to do and when, our article on Texas executor duties covers the administration timeline. For families who suspect the estate is being mismanaged more broadly, a probate attorney's first step is almost always an expedited inventory demand — getting the baseline on paper before anything else.
The Structure Behind § 404.0035 and Why It Works This Way
It is worth understanding why Texas structured the removal statute this way. Independent administration in Texas is precisely that: independent. The legislature designed it to give executors broad authority to manage an estate without constant court supervision, in exchange for periodic accountability through inventory, accounting, and distribution obligations. The court's ability to initiate removal on its own motion — without waiting for a beneficiary to file — reflects the court's ongoing supervisory role as the backstop of the system.
Subsection (b), which gives interested persons a petition right, focuses on conduct that indicates the executor is unfit to continue: misconduct, conflict of interest, incapacity. It is not designed to give beneficiaries a tool to remove executors for administrative failures alone, because those failures often have innocent explanations and are correctable through a compel order rather than full removal.
The practical effect is a graduated response: demand letter, motion to compel, and removal petition as an escalating sequence — each step triggered if the prior one fails. Families who skip to the petition frequently encounter courts that prefer to see whether compelled compliance resolves the issue before removing an executor and triggering the cost and disruption of appointing a successor.
Back to Frisco
Marcus Webb did not remove his sister as executor. He sent a certified demand letter, as his attorney advised, giving Diane twenty-one days to respond. She filed the inventory on the nineteenth day — more than two months past the deadline, but before any court motion was necessary.
The inventory was not what Marcus had expected. It included the house, both retirement accounts, and the brokerage account he already knew about. It did not include a savings account their father had mentioned in conversations with Marcus the prior year — an account that appeared to have been closed eleven months before his father's death.
That missing account is what eventually led to a § 404.0035(b) removal petition, filed three months after the inventory. The ground was not the late filing. The ground was what the late filing had been obscuring.
The inventory was the beginning of the investigation, not the end of it. It was only useful because someone with standing knew how to demand it — and understood that the demand letter, not an immediate removal petition, was the right first move.
If an Executor in Your Family's Estate Is Not Filing
Texas probate administration has real deadlines, and when they pass without action, beneficiaries have the right to know why and to demand compliance. But the legal tools available — and the sequence in which to use them — matter enormously. A misdirected petition can cost months and signal to a court that the petitioner lacks procedural grounding, which weakens everything that follows.
Therese Gutierrez and Philip Burgess at WG Law offer a free probate case review for families navigating Texas estate administrations. A brief conversation often clarifies exactly where the estate stands, what the executor's legal obligations are, and what steps are available when those obligations are not being met.
Request your free probate case review or call 214-250-4407 to speak with our intake team. WG Law serves Collin County, Denton County, Tarrant County, and the greater DFW metroplex from offices in McKinney and Southlake.
This article is general information about Texas probate law and is not legal advice. Every estate administration involves specific facts that may change the analysis. Consult a licensed Texas probate attorney before taking action in your situation.