Methods, systems, and devices for wireless communication are described for a beam-aware handover procedure for multi-beam access systems. A source base station may determine that a handover request is to be sent to a target base station in preparation for handover of a user equipment (UE) from the source base station to the target base station, and transmit the handover request to the target base station with an indication of whether the handover is to be delayed. Alternatively or in addition to, either the target base station or the source base station may generate and transmit a time expiration indicator. The indication of whether the handover is to be delayed or the time expiration indicator may allow either the target base station or the UE to determine whether access parameters for the UE are valid.