§ 16.062.Effect of Death

A tolling provision for the interval in which a claim has no one to pursue it or no one to answer it.

The death of a person against whom or in whose favor there may be a cause of action suspends the running of an applicable statute of limitations for 12 months after the death.

It runs both ways, which is the first thing to notice. A plaintiff who dies and a defendant who dies both trigger it. Either death leaves the claim without a competent party until the estate is opened.

Subsection (b) cuts the suspension short. If an executor or administrator qualifies before the twelve months expires, the statute begins to run at the time of the qualification. The moment there is someone to sue or someone to sue on the claim’s behalf, the reason for the pause is gone.

So twelve months is a ceiling, not an entitlement. An estate opened promptly — which is the norm where anyone is paying attention — gives far less.

The practical trap is assuming a full year. A claimant who waits, believing they have twelve months, may find the period restarted weeks after the death because the family qualified an administrator quickly.

Note what it does not do. It suspends; it does not restart. The time already elapsed before the death still counts, so a claim with two months left has fourteen at most, not twelve plus a fresh period.

Read it with the survival provision, which decides whether a personal injury claim exists after death at all, and with the wrongful death provisions, which create a separate claim on the death itself with its own accrual. This section addresses the clock, not the claim.

Note also that the real property lien provision preserves this suspension expressly against a bona fide purchaser, one of only two exceptions it makes.