By Austin Senior Advisor Care Team · July 20, 2026
Moving a parent into assisted living does not automatically end their Texas homestead exemption, and the over-65 tax deferral can free up cash for care. Both are easy to lose by accident.
The exemption does not end the day they move out
Families assume that once a parent leaves the house, the homestead exemption goes with them. That is not what Texas law says. Under Tax Code Section 11.13(l), a home does not lose its character as a residence homestead when the owner stops living there, as long as the owner does not establish a different principal residence and the absence is caused by military service or by residency in a facility that provides services related to health, infirmity, or aging.
Read that last phrase carefully, because it is doing a lot of work. Assisted living, memory care, and nursing facilities all fit the description. There is no two-year clock on this category. The two-year limit in the statute applies to the ordinary temporary-absence rule, not to the facility rule.
The condition that actually matters is the one about a different principal residence. If your parent moves into a Round Rock assisted living community and the house in South Austin sits empty or is used by family, the exemption generally holds. If your parent moves in with you permanently, or the house is rented out commercially, the picture changes and you should expect the appraisal district to ask questions.
Travis Central Appraisal District is required by state law to audit its exemption records every five years, and it may write and ask your parent to reapply. If that letter goes to an empty house, nobody answers it, and the exemption comes off. This is the most common way Austin families lose the benefit: not a rule change, a missed envelope.
What the over-65 exemptions are actually worth in 2026
Two separate things attach to a Texas homeowner at 65, and families routinely confuse them. The first is an exemption, which removes value from taxation. The second is a ceiling, which freezes a dollar amount.
On exemptions, the Texas Comptroller confirms that school districts must provide a $140,000 general residence homestead exemption under Tax Code 11.13(b), plus an additional $60,000 for owners who are 65 or older or disabled under 11.13(c). That is $200,000 of value taken off the school-tax portion of the bill. City, county, and other local units may adopt their own optional exemptions on top, and the amounts differ by taxing unit, so the only reliable source is the exemption listing your own appraisal district publishes.
The ceiling is separate and, over a long retirement, usually worth more. Under Tax Code 11.26, once your parent qualifies at 65, school taxes on that home are frozen at the amount paid in the first qualifying year. TCAD puts it plainly: the school taxes may go below the ceiling but not above, and the ceiling only rises if you add improvements like a garage or an extra room, not for normal repairs or maintenance.
Two details worth writing down. A surviving spouse who is 55 or older when the qualifying spouse dies keeps both the exemption and the ceiling on that home. And if your parent moves from one Texas home to another, the ceiling is not simply lost. TCAD confirms an over-65 homeowner may transfer the same percentage of tax paid to a new qualified homestead, handled as a certificate between appraisal districts rather than something you calculate yourself.
The deferral: real money, real teeth
This is the tool almost nobody in Austin uses, and the one that most often changes a family's math. If your parent qualifies for the Age 65 or Older or the Disability exemption, they may file a tax deferral affidavit and postpone paying property taxes on the homestead. Travis Central Appraisal District describes it as a postponement for as long as you own and live in the home.
The mechanics are specific. Deferred taxes accrue 5 percent interest per year. Williamson County's tax office states the same rate as 0.4167 percent per month. Taxing units cannot sue to collect while the deferral is in place. The taxes and accrued interest become payable when the property is sold or ownership passes to the estate or heirs, and if the debt is still unpaid 180 days after the property stops qualifying, full penalties, interest, and collection action follow.
For a family paying privately for assisted living, that arithmetic is worth having. Five percent annual interest, with no foreclosure risk from the taxing units, is cheaper than most of the alternatives people reach for first. The deferral does not reduce the debt. It moves it to the sale of the house, which for many families is where the money was always going to come from anyway.
There are two warnings that belong in bold. First, a mortgage. Williamson County's office is direct about it: contact the mortgage company before filing, because the lender may still be able to foreclose under the loan agreement, and the lender may choose to pay the taxes itself at any time while it holds a lien. Second, reverse mortgages. A reverse mortgage lender will generally require all taxes, including past-due amounts, paid in full before completing paperwork, which can undo a deferral you have been relying on.
The question we cannot answer for you, and how to get it answered
Here is where honesty is more useful than confidence. Tax Code 11.13(l) preserves the homestead exemption when an owner moves into a health, infirmity, or aging facility. The deferral operates on the residence homestead too, but both TCAD and the Williamson County tax office describe it in terms of a home the owner owns and lives in, and Williamson County says taxes become due when the homeowner no longer owns and resides in the home.
Whether an existing deferral survives a parent's move into an Austin assisted living community, and whether one can be newly filed after that move, is a question about how your specific appraisal district applies these provisions to your specific facts. We are not going to guess at it in print, and you should be sceptical of any senior-living website that gives you a clean yes or no. Get it in writing from the district that will administer it.
There is also no published figure for how many Central Texas households use the over-65 deferral, or what the average deferred balance is. Neither TCAD nor the Comptroller publishes that breakdown, so anyone quoting you a number for Austin is estimating.
Ask the district three questions by email, so you have the answer on paper. Does an existing deferral continue if the owner moves into a licensed assisted living facility and keeps the homestead exemption under 11.13(l). Can a deferral be filed after that move. And what documentation does the district want to show that no other principal residence has been established.
What to do this month
Start by pulling the current tax record and confirming which exemptions are actually on the account. Plenty of Austin seniors who turned 65 years ago never filed for the over-65 exemption and have been paying full freight since. It is free to apply, at every appraisal district in Texas. Anyone charging your parent a fee to file a homestead exemption is selling them something they do not need.
Travis County. Travis Central Appraisal District, 850 East Anderson Lane, Austin, TX 78752. Main line 512-834-9317. There is a dedicated exemption helpline at 512-873-1560. Applications can be filed by mail, online, or in person, and TCAD says action on an application occurs within 90 days. The deferral affidavit is Comptroller Form 50-126 and must be notarised; TCAD notarises forms filed with the district free of charge. The Travis County Tax Office, which sends the bill, is at 2433 Ridgepoint Dr., Austin, TX 78754, and will also notarise the deferral affidavit in person.
Williamson County. Exemptions and deferrals are administered by Williamson Central Appraisal District, 625 FM 1460, Georgetown, TX 78626, phone 512-930-3787. Same 5 percent, same 180-day rule. If your parent is in Sun City or anywhere else in Georgetown, Round Rock, Cedar Park, or Leander, this is your office, not TCAD.
Do this before the bills arrive in the autumn rather than after. The delinquency date for Texas property taxes is January 31, and a deferral affidavit filed in a panic in late January is a worse conversation than one filed in August. If the house is likely to be sold to fund care, or if Medicaid is anywhere in the picture, talk to a Texas elder law attorney first. Deferred taxes and accrued interest come off the sale proceeds, and how the house is handled interacts with Medicaid estate recovery in ways that are expensive to get wrong. Our guides on how Austin families pay for care and what to do when the money is running out cover the rest of that sequence.