How We Track Texas Homestead Bills
The Texas Legislature moves fast, but many bill "hits" are duplicates. Here's how we turn a flood of TLO records into a small number of clear public cards.
We use official sources first
Everything we publish traces back to an official source. We start with Texas Legislature Online — the state's own bill lookup — and layer on MyTLO alerts and RSS feeds for bill text, bill history, actions, analyses, and reports. Every public card links back to the TLO record so readers can verify the caption, sponsors, and current status themselves.
One bill equals one public card
Texas Legislature Online search results often show the same bill many times — introduced, engrossed, enrolled, committee reports, fiscal notes, bill analyses, and action history. We collapse every version into a single record.
Behind the scenes, each bill has an internal history trail with every version we've reviewed. On the public site, you see one card. That's the rule.
We categorize by homeowner or landowner relevance
Every bill on the watchlist is filed under one of these categories:
- Homestead Exemptions
- Property Taxes & Appraisal
- Property Tax Notices
- Appraisal Districts & ARB
- Disabled Veterans & Surviving Spouses
- Elderly / Disabled Tax Ceilings
- Deed Fraud & Property Theft
- Eminent Domain / Condemnation
- Heirs, Probate & Family Land
- Ag, Timber & Open-Space Land
- Farm Products & Rural Property
- Disaster, Water & Rural Infrastructure
- Notices, Deadlines & Taxpayer Procedures
We apply a filtering rule
If a bill only mentions agriculture (or another stakeholder group) as a general reference, we treat it as Watch Only — unless the bill directly affects land ownership, agricultural appraisal, open-space valuation, property taxes, land use, water, disaster recovery, deed records, condemnation, or county-level landowner rights.
We do not publish every mention
Every card carries a review status:
- Watch — the bill is on our list but does not yet have a public explainer. It will only get one if it develops direct homeowner or landowner impact.
- Summarize — we're preparing a plain-English summary and will link it from the card once reviewed.
- Publish — a plain-English explainer is live from the card.
- Archive — the bill died, was withdrawn, or was superseded, and is retained for context.
We do not lobby
We do not take political positions on bills, endorse candidates, coordinate advocacy, or provide lobbying guidance. Our job is to help Texans understand official sources in plain English so they can decide for themselves what to do — including calling their appraisal district, consulting a Texas attorney, or contacting their state legislator.
The current Legislative Watch page lists every bill we're tracking, filterable by category and searchable by keyword. Cards labeled Publish link to full plain-English explainers.
Sources & references
Primary sources: Texas Legislature Online, MyTLO Bill Alerts, and the TLO RSS feeds. Companion agency sources: Texas Comptroller Property Tax, the Texas Statutes site (Property Code and Tax Code), and county appraisal-district and county-clerk resources.
Last reviewed July 1, 2026. Laws, exemptions, deadlines, and local practices may change — please verify with official sources and consult a qualified professional about your specific situation.