Court orders often use terms such as “personal property” and “personal effects.” These phrases have specific meanings in Texas.
Personal Property
In re Estate of Hunt, 597 S.W.3d 912, 916 (Tex. App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 1994, no pet.) held that “Personal property” has a well-established technical legal meaning and “encompasses everything other than real property.”
Real property means “land, and generally whatever is erected or growing upon or fixed to the land.” Tex. Dep’t of Parks & Wildlife v. Miranda, 133 S.W.3d 217, 229 (Tex. 2004)(holding that a falling tree limb is real property because a tree grows upon land).
So, a three acre lot is real property, as is a house, apartment building, apple orchard, hedge, and windmill. Everything that is not real property is personal property. Personal property thus includes furniture, clothes, shoes, art work, jewelry, rugs, appliances not fixed to the house, guns, tools, sporting equipment, kayaks and canoes, pots and pans and dishes, cleaning supplies, televisions, and computers. Dogs, cats, and other pets are considered personal property in Texas. Arrington v. Arrington, 613 S.W.2d 565, 569 (Tex. Civ. App.- Fort Worth 1981, no writ).
Personal Effects
In Texas, the term “personal effects” is a specific subclass of personal property. The court in Matter of Estate of Ethridge, 594 S.W.3d 611, 617 (Tex. App.-Eastland 2019, no pet.) stated, “Personal effects has customarily been defined narrowly as a subset of personal property. The term generally refers to articles bearing intimate relation or association to the person of the testator.” Dearman v. Dutschmann , 739 S.W.2d 454, 455 (Tex. App.—Corpus Christi 1987, writ denied) held that “personal effects” are “articles of personal property” that bear an intimate relation to a person, such as “clothing, jewelry, and similar chattels.” Teaff v. Ritchey , 622 S.W.2d 589, 591– 92 (Tex. App.—Amarillo 1981, no writ) defined “personal effects” to include items such as “clothes, toilet articles, eye glasses[,] and dentures.” First Methodist Episcopal Church S. v. Anderson , 110 S.W.2d 1177, 1182 (Tex. App.—Dallas 1937, writ dism’d) stated that “personal effects” means “articles pertaining to or associated with the person of the deceased, such as wearing apparel, luggage, jewelry, and the like.”
Thus, a hammer and a sweater are both items of personal property, but only the sweater would be considered a “personal effect.”
Tangible Personal Property
Wilke v. Phillips, No. 04-12-00604-CV (Tex. App. – San Antonio 11/13/2013, no pet.(mem. op.) noted that “tangible personal property” is not defined in the Texas Family Code, but the Texas Tax Code defines it as “personal property that can be seen, weighed, measured, felt, or touched or that is perceptible to the senses in any other manner . . . .” TEX. TAX CODE ANN. § 151.009 (West 2008). This case held that $40,000 awarded from the future sale of a house was a monetary award. The Court cited two earlier cases and held that money is not considered a “good” or “tangible chattel,” but is instead “a currency of exchange that enables the holder to acquire goods” and therefore the $40,000 monetary award was not tangible personal property under section 9.003(a).