Who Decides About Your Body
Health & Safety 711.002 — a written designation first, then a fixed order, then six days to act
Unless the decedent left written directions, Texas gives the right to control disposition, including cremation, to these persons in this order.
- The person designated in a written instrument signed by the decedent.
- The surviving spouse.
- Any one of the surviving adult children.
- Either surviving parent.
- Any one of the surviving adult siblings.
- Any one or more of the qualified executors or administrators of the estate.
- Any adult in the next degree of kinship in the order the law names to inherit.
Use it or it passes. If the person with the right fails to make or delegate final arrangements before the earlier of the 6th day after receiving notice of the death or the 10th day after the death, they are presumed unable or unwilling, the right terminates, and it passes to another person in the same class or the next class in order.
The cost. A person exercising the right, other than an executor or administrator, is liable for the reasonable cost of interment and may seek reimbursement from the estate.
Anatomical gifts, the medical examiner's authority, the funeral home's own forms, and who pays for disposition when no one with the right will act are outside this page. A dispute between family members of equal rank is a question for a licensed Texas attorney, and in some states for a court.
Sources for this section (1)
- Health & Safety 711.002 — Disposition of remains; duty to inter
Legal information, not legal advice. Verified as of September 2026. Applying it to a particular situation is the work of a licensed Texas attorney.