Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton—already a lightning rod in state and national politics—has found himself at the center of yet another controversy.
According to records obtained by The New York Times, Paxton and his estranged wife, Angela Paxton, declared not one, but three separate homes in Texas as their primary residence in official mortgage documents.
The revelation, first surfaced in an Associated Press investigation, comes at a delicate moment for the attorney general. Just weeks earlier, Angela Paxton, a state senator, filed for divorce, citing adultery.
And barely three months before that, Ken Paxton formally launched his campaign to unseat Senator John Cornyn in what is expected to be one of the most expensive and closely watched Republican primaries of the 2026 election season.
Mortgage filings reviewed by The Times reveal that the Paxtons designated three different properties in Texas as their “primary residence.”
Such a designation is not trivial. Labeling a property as primary often allows borrowers to qualify for lower interest rates, reduced down payments, and more favorable loan conditions.
The difference in terms can translate into hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings over the life of a mortgage.
The Paxtons’ main residence is a $1 million-plus home in McKinney, a suburb of Dallas. Voter registration records confirm it as their official address.
This house sits squarely in Angela Paxton’s Senate district, the same one Ken Paxton represented before his election as attorney general in 2014.
But the couple also claimed two additional homes in Austin as their primary residence. Online listings suggest that both of these Austin properties function as rentals, and Paxton himself has disclosed income from two Austin rental sources in his state-mandated financial filings.
By most legal definitions, however, a rental property is considered an investment asset, not a primary home. And that distinction matters—banks often view investment properties as riskier, which makes them harder and more expensive to finance.
The issue is not simply political optics. Mortgage paperwork is a federal and state legal document. Knowingly making false statements on such documents can amount to mortgage fraud, a crime under both state and federal law.
That said, the bar for proving fraud is high. Legal scholars note that prosecutors must show not only that the borrowers misstated facts, but also that they did so with clear knowledge and intent.
“You have to show they actively knew they were lying and they knew what they were doing,” explained James C. Spindler, a professor of corporate and securities law at the University of Texas at Austin. “That’s a high bar.”
In practice, mortgage fraud cases are often settled quietly—through fines, penalties, or negotiations with banks—because prosecutors rarely have the bandwidth to pursue them unless they involve massive sums or clear evidence of systemic deception.
The Paxtons’ case also intersects with a broader political narrative. In recent years, several prominent Democrats, including New York Attorney General Letitia James and California Congressman Adam Schiff, have faced scrutiny—mostly from Trump administration officials—over allegations of misrepresenting real estate documents.
While those cases did not lead to prosecutions, they illustrate how accusations of mortgage misstatements can become weapons in partisan battles.
For Ken Paxton, this dynamic is familiar. Throughout his career, he has repeatedly survived accusations that might have ended other political careers.
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In 2015, he was indicted on securities fraud charges after allegedly misleading investors about his role in promoting a technology company, failing to disclose that he earned a commission. He eventually reached a $300,000 settlement, sidestepping a criminal trial.
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In 2023, the Republican-controlled Texas House voted to impeach him on charges of corruption and abuse of power, allegations leveled by his own former aides. The case moved to the Senate, where the Republican majority acquitted him, allowing him to retain office.
For a decade, Paxton has endured—and often thrived—through legal storms that would have sidelined others. His loyal conservative base, his reputation as a culture-warrior attorney general, and his ability to frame investigations as partisan attacks have all kept him afloat.
Senator John Cornyn, a longtime fixture in Texas politics and a former Senate Republican whip, has cast the coming primary as a referendum on values. “A test of whether character still matters,” he has called it.
Cornyn’s campaign team wasted little time in seizing on the mortgage revelations. In a statement, senior adviser Matt Mackowiak described the Paxtons’ maneuvering as “deeply unethical.”
“At a time when millions of Americans are fighting to survive under high home mortgage rates, Ken Paxton lied to banks to amass a property empire making him a multimillionaire while on a government salary,” Mackowiak said.
The language underscored Cornyn’s strategy: to position himself as the steady, ethical alternative to Paxton’s scandal-plagued tenure.
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Since purchasing their McKinney property, the couple has consistently claimed a homestead exemption, which lowers property taxes for owner-occupied homes.
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In 2018, records indicate they received a similar exemption on one of their Austin properties, even though Texas law requires the homeowner to certify that the property is their primary residence.
Officials in Travis County, where Austin is located, later explained that the exemption benefits transferred automatically from a previous owner.
Still, the overlapping exemptions raise uncomfortable questions about whether the Paxtons benefited from tax relief they may not have been entitled to claim.
In 2022, Paxton purchased a $1.6 million home in Broken Bow, Oklahoma, financed through a $1.28 million mortgage.
On the loan documents, Paxton declared the property a second home—explicitly stating it would not be used as a rental. Yet the house has been listed on vacation rental platform Vrbo, according to the Dallas Observer.
Similarly, a College Station, Texas, home the couple bought in 2016 for about $360,000 was also registered as a secondary residence. Yet online listings show it has been offered for rent multiple times since then.
Under mortgage rules, buyers can sometimes rent out second homes after a one-year waiting period. Whether Paxton complied with those restrictions remains unclear.
If he did not, he may have breached mortgage agreements—a potential civil issue with lenders, if not a criminal one.
The complexity of the Paxtons’ real estate dealings reflects a broader truth about mortgage law: much of it lives in gray zones. Exemptions can transfer automatically, rental restrictions can vary, and proving intent is difficult.
For voters, the story may boil down to something simple: Did Ken Paxton, a man paid by taxpayers to uphold the law, bend financial rules for personal gain?
For opponents like Cornyn, the answer seems obvious. For Paxton’s loyal supporters, however, the story may simply reinforce his narrative as a victim of a hostile media and political establishment determined to take him down.
The revelation that Ken and Angela Paxton declared three different homes as primary residences is more than just a financial footnote. It touches on issues of ethics, legality, and trust at a moment when Paxton is seeking higher office.
Mortgage fraud may be hard to prove in court, but in the court of public opinion, the case may not require technical evidence.
The optics alone—claiming multiple “primary” homes, benefiting from overlapping tax breaks, renting out properties purchased under restrictive terms—paint a portrait that critics describe as opportunistic at best, deceptive at worst.
As the 2026 Republican primary approaches, voters will face a question: Do they care more about Paxton’s combative stance against Democrats, his legal track record of survival, and his alignment with Trump-era politics—or about the growing list of personal and financial controversies that shadow his career?
