Whether the death is handled by a medical examiner or, as in most of Texas, a justice of the peace, the counties this site has read do not release a person until the next of kin has named a funeral home. So the first question is often not when, but who is allowed to say.
Texas answers it in Health and Safety Code § 711.002(a), and the answer runs to seven tiers. Summaries often compress it and leave the executors out; the full list is below, and the tier they drop matters more often than you would expect.
The order, as the statute sets it
- A person named in a written instrument signed by the person who died. A prior written direction beats everyone below, including a spouse.
- The surviving spouse.
- Any one of the surviving adult children. Any one — not all of them, and not a majority.
- Either surviving parent.
- Any one of the surviving adult siblings.
- Any one or more of the duly qualified executors or administrators of the estate.
- Any adult in the next degree of kinship in the order named by law to inherit.
Tier six is the one summaries omit. If there is a will with a named executor who has been qualified, that executor decides before a cousin, a niece, a nephew or a grandparent does. Families with no surviving spouse, children, parents or siblings often go looking for the most willing relative, when the statute has already answered the question — and the funeral home will ask for the executor, not for the volunteer.
There is also a money consequence attached to that tier specifically. A person exercising this right is personally liable for the reasonable cost of interment and can seek reimbursement from the estate. When an executor or administrator exercises it under tier six, the statute puts the cost on the estate and states that the executor is not individually liable. That is a materially different position to be in, and it is worth knowing before anyone signs a funeral contract.
Who cannot decide at all
Subsection (l) takes the right away from anyone in the seven tiers who, in connection with the death, has been arrested or has an arrest warrant issued for a criminal homicide involving family violence against the person who died — and from anyone the person who died had sought a protective order against. The right then passes as if that person were not on the list.
What “any one” actually means
Tiers three and five say any one of the adult children, or any one of the adult siblings. It is the sentence families argue over. It means:
- One adult child can direct the disposition without the agreement of the others.
- A funeral home acting on that direction is protected: under § 711.002(i) a funeral director “shall not be liable” for carrying out the directions of a person who represents that they are entitled to control the disposition.
- Being the eldest, the nearest, or the one paying does not create priority within a tier.
If a family is divided, the statute names the referee. Under § 711.002(k), any dispute among the people listed in the seven tiers is resolved by the court with jurisdiction over probate for the person who died, “regardless of whether a probate proceeding has been initiated.” In practice the funeral home will usually act on the first instruction it receives from someone entitled to give it — that is an observation, not the statute — so the route to change a decision is a lawyer and that court, not the funeral home’s front desk.
The clock on the decision
The right to decide is not open-ended. Under § 711.002(a-1), if the person entitled to decide has not made final arrangements, or appointed someone else to, before the earlier of the 6th day after they were notified of the death or the 10th day after the death, they are presumed unable or unwilling, their right ends, and it passes to anyone else in the same tier and then down the list. For a family waiting on a sibling who will not answer the phone, that is the date that matters.
What this order controls, and what it does not
It controls the disposition of the remains — burial or cremation, and which funeral home. That is a narrower thing than most people assume, and four other decisions run on entirely different tracks:
| Decision | Who actually controls it |
|---|---|
| Burial or cremation, and which funeral home | § 711.002, the order above |
| The property and the house | the police, not the medical examiner and not next of kin. See who releases a death scene in Texas |
| The death certificate | the funeral home, working with the examiner’s office. Travis County, for example, states that it will work with the designated funeral home to complete a certificate within 10 working days, and that it does not provide copies at all |
| Who pays for a cleanup, in a rental | the lease, the deposit and both insurers. Texas gives a landlord a repair duty with an exception that plausibly covers a death inside the unit, and § 92.014 sets what happens to the belongings — see a death in a Texas rental |
The second row is the one that costs families days. Being the next of kin does not give you the keys. The house is released by the officer who secured it, on a timetable nobody publishes, and that is the conversation to have at the scene rather than later.
The offices will tell you their own limits
It is worth reading what the county says about itself before calling, because each one publishes boundaries that catch people out. Harris County’s Institute of Forensic Sciences states that it “collects only the personal property found on the individual’s person at the time of their death”, and on viewing, that “The funeral home is the setting to view your loved one’s remains and all viewing of the body should be arranged through your selected funeral director.”
So the sequence that actually works is: establish who decides under § 711.002, name a funeral home, let the funeral home deal with the examiner’s office, and separately ask the police about the residence. Those are two conversations, not one, and confusing them is the most common reason a family waits longer than it needed to.
Before you call anyone
Have the full name and date of birth, the address where the person was found, the case or incident number if the police gave you one, and — if there is a will — the name of the executor. If you are not sure which tier you are in, say so on the call rather than guessing; the offices deal with this every day and would rather establish it once.
How long does a Texas medical examiner take? sets out what each county publishes about its own timings, which is the next question after this one.
This is a summary of a Texas statute with a link to its text, not legal advice. Where a family is in disagreement, or where an estate is involved, that is a question for a lawyer.
Each city on this network has its own page with that county’s offices, the local numbers and the rules that apply there, with the sources. Find your city.