Hood River County, OR Probate Information

Before you file anything at 309 State Street, know exactly what the estate holds. Which Oregon route fits depends on whether there is a will, on who is entitled to be appointed, and on the value and type of the assets, because a full probate that ends in letters testamentary or letters of administration and a simple estate affidavit under ORS 114.505 to 114.560 are different filings with different fees, different waiting periods and different consequences. Those routes and their dollar caps are statewide and are explained on the Oregon state page. Two Hood River specifics make the homework worth doing first: this court publishes no probate department and no probate phone line, so there is no counter specialist to walk a correction through, and the filing counter closes for an hour at midday and again at 4:30 p.m., which makes a return trip cost most of a day.

Identify every bank and credit union account, retirement plan, brokerage holding, life insurance policy, vehicle and parcel of real property, along with every debt, before you file. In Oregon that is a filing requirement rather than good practice: the petition must state the extent and nature of the estate's assets so the court can set the bond (ORS 113.035), and the caption must state the value of the estate because the filing fee is tiered by that value (ORS 21.105(1); ORS 21.170(1)). If an amended pleading raises the value, the court collects the difference (ORS 21.105(2)). Orchard ground, forestland and Columbia Gorge property make that valuation work real here rather than nominal. Sunset's asset discovery work, searching more than 2,300 financial institutions, exists for this step, so the petition you file in Hood River states the estate accurately the first time.

The Hood River County Circuit Court, at the Hood River County Courthouse, 309 State Street in the city of Hood River, is the only probate filing location for the county. There is no branch courthouse and no second counter. The court serves all of Hood River County, including the county's two incorporated cities, Hood River, which is the county seat, and Cascade Locks at the west end of the county, along with the orchard country of the Hood River Valley and the national forest land running up toward Mount Hood. The county is small in area, the second smallest in Oregon at 533 square miles by the county's own account, so the drive is short by eastern Oregon standards, but the counter's midday closure still shapes a trip.

Hood River County Circuit Court is one of five county circuit courts in the 7th Judicial District, which also covers Wasco, Gilliam, Sherman and Wheeler counties (ORS 3.012 groups Oregon's circuit courts into 27 judicial districts, and the 7th has four judges). The court's Judges page states that those judges share responsibility for all five county circuit courts, that two of them have their primary office in Hood River County, and that the Presiding Judge for the district sits primarily in Wasco County. The district publishes one set of supplementary local rules for all five counties and shares most of its local forms across them, which is why so many forms on the Hood River page carry a 7th District label. None of that changes where you file. A shared district is an administrative fact: a Hood River County estate is filed at the Hood River County Courthouse.

One thing about the neighbors matters more than the shared rules, and it is the most common mistake made about this district. Gilliam, Sherman and Wheeler counties, which sit in the same 7th Judicial District as Hood River, are three of the six Oregon counties where probate belongs to the county court and is filed with the county clerk or the county court offices instead of the circuit court. Hood River is not one of the six. ORS 111.075 vests probate jurisdiction in the county courts of Gilliam, Grant, Harney, Malheur, Sherman and Wheeler Counties and in the circuit court for each other county, and Hood River is one of the others. The county's own history confirms it from the other direction: Hood River County adopted the home rule form of government in 1964 and is governed by a five-member elected board of commissioners, so there is no county judge and no county court here to file with. Everything statewide therefore applies in Hood River, including OJD eFile and the Oregon Judicial Department's online case search, neither of which reaches those three neighbors. If a guide or a search result tells you to mail a Hood River petition to a county clerk, it has borrowed the rule from the wrong county in the same district.

Two other courts serve people in this county and neither handles an estate. The Hood River Municipal Court processes citations and complaints issued within the City of Hood River, and the court's own resources page notes that the majority of its cases are traffic infractions. The Cascade Locks Justice Court, which the county established in 1939 for the District of Cascade Locks, sits at 440 WaNaPa Street in Cascade Locks and has jurisdiction over traffic, boating, wildlife and other violations. The Hood River County Assessment, Records, and Elections Department, on the third floor of the county Business Administration Building at 601 State Street, records deeds and issues marriage licenses; it matters to an estate only when real property has to be recorded, and it publishes nothing about probate. Probate filings go to the Circuit Court at 309 State Street.

Venue is broad. Oregon law allows a probate to be filed in the county where the decedent was domiciled or had a place of abode at the time of death, in any county where the decedent's property was located at death or is located when the proceeding starts, in the county where the decedent died, or in the county where a personal injury or wrongful death claim could be brought (ORS 113.015(1)); filing in another county is not a jurisdictional defect (ORS 113.015(2)). In practice you file in the county where the decedent lived, because that is where the notice to interested persons is published (ORS 113.155(1)). So if the person who died lived in Hood River County, file in Hood River. If proceedings are started in more than one county, all but the first are stayed until venue is settled, and the court may transfer the matter for the best interest of the estate (ORS 113.025).

One district, five counties, three of them on a different probate system. The 7th Judicial District covers Hood River, Wasco, Gilliam, Sherman and Wheeler counties with four judges who share responsibility for all five circuit courts, one set of supplementary local rules and a largely shared form library. That is why a Hood River filer keeps meeting documents labelled 7th District rather than Hood River. The part that actually changes an answer is that Gilliam, Sherman and Wheeler are county-court probate counties under ORS 111.075 while Hood River and Wasco are not, so advice written for a sibling county in this district can send a Hood River reader to a county clerk who does not take probate filings. The district's own rules do not flag the split: unlike the 24th District's rules for Grant and Harney and the 9th District's for Malheur, the 7th District's SLR 9.081(1) says only that oral objections in a protective proceeding go to the clerk of the court for that jurisdiction, and it points to each county's website for that clerk's location and daily hours. For Hood River that means the Circuit Court at 309 State Street, 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.

The court's day has a hole in the middle of it. Hood River publishes courthouse hours of 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, so the counter is shut over the lunch hour and closes half an hour earlier than the 8 to 5 pattern many Oregon circuit courts keep. There is no published phone-service window, no business hours document and no after-hours drop box described on the court's pages, and there is no probate line or extension to call: apart from a separate jury coordinator line, 541-386-3535 is the court's only published number. If the trip matters, e-filing removes the deadline problem entirely, because an electronic filing is timely to 11:59:59 p.m. in the court's time zone (UTCR 21.080(2)).

Probate is out of the district's mandatory mediation program, but an estate filing still carries a mediation notice. The 7th Judicial District runs a mandatory alternative dispute resolution program under SLR 12.005(1), and SLR 12.005(3) lists the case types excluded from it: forcible entry and detainer cases, probate, small claims, adoptions, guardianships and others. So a decedent's estate is not routed into mediation or arbitration in this district. Separately, the court's Mediation Notice page instructs that a filer of a contract, tort, small claims, landlord tenant, estate, conservatorship, guardianship or wrongful death compensation case must serve the respondent with the statewide ORS 36.185 mediation notice along with the claim or complaint, and the court publishes that notice in seven languages. Read the two together: no court-ordered mediation for an estate, but serve the notice the court asks for.

Records are thin at a distance, and paper certification matters here. Hood River publishes no public records kiosk, unlike some other small Oregon courts, so from outside the courthouse the free Oregon Judicial Department Records and Calendar Search gives the case index and register of actions but no documents, and the remote route to documents is a paid OJCIN OnLine subscription. Copies are requested on the statewide records request form, and the district also publishes its own 7th District public records request form. The court's published copy costs are $3.00 per case request plus 25 cents per page for paper copies, $5.00 plus the per-page charge for a certified copy, $10.00 plus the per-page charge for an exemplified copy, $3.00 per case request for an electronic document emailed and $5.00 per document request for an electronic certified copy, with payment due in full before the court processes the request (court records page, verified July 2026; the certified-letters figure matches the statewide schedule under ORS 21.258 and Chief Justice Order 23-016). The line an estate needs is the court's own warning that certified documents in estate and probate cases used to administer estates, such as fiduciary letters and simple estate affidavits, may need to be certified on paper rather than electronically, so ask the receiving bank or registry which form it takes before you order. An exemplified copy, the three-way certificate other states and countries often require, is sworn by the Court Administrator and a judge.

Two State Streets, two different offices, and only one takes a probate. The Circuit Court is at 309 State Street. The Hood River County Assessment, Records, and Elections Department, whose director is styled Director, Assessor and Clerk, is on the third floor of the county Business Administration Building at 601 State Street, with a records and elections line of (541) 386-1442, an assessment line of (541) 386-4522, a fax of (541) 387-6864 and public office hours of 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. That office records deeds, issues marriage licenses, registers domestic partnership declarations, runs elections and handles assessment and property value appeals, and it publishes nothing about probate; it is also not the county tax collector. It matters to an estate at one moment, when a deed has to be recorded, and it takes recordings by appointment only, so call 541-386-4522 first. This is the exact reverse of the arrangement in Gilliam, Sherman and Wheeler in this same district, where the county office is where a probate is filed.

Many Hood River County estates are uncontested, and a family that knows what the estate holds can often open one and see it through with limited legal help. Three local facts push the other way. Oregon prescribes no petition form (ORS 111.205(2)), so a self-represented filer is drafting the petition, the order, the notices and the inventory from scratch. This court publishes no probate department and no probate phone line, and its counter is open in two short blocks a day, so there is limited room to fix a filing in person. And a non-professional personal representative appointed here owes the district's education class within 60 days of appointment, with registration due within 15 days and removal available as a sanction for missing it (SLR 9.076), while an attorney appointed as fiduciary is exempt from the rule entirely. Consider counsel when a will is contested or a dispute among heirs is likely, when the estate is insolvent or a creditor is pressing a claim inside the four-month window (ORS 115.005), when orchard ground, forestland, water or irrigation rights, a farm business, a short-term rental or out-of-state property has to be valued, sold or divided, when a conservatorship or guardianship has to run alongside the estate, or when a matter looks likely to be set for a contested hearing or trial. Court staff can explain procedure but cannot give legal advice. Sunset can connect families to a vetted Oregon probate attorney serving Hood River County.

Find the accounts and assets. Sunset searches more than 2,300 financial institutions and public records to surface bank and credit union accounts, retirement plans, brokerage holdings, life insurance, Hood River County real property and unclaimed property, so you know the estate's value before you file during estate settlement. That matters here twice over: the petition must state the extent and nature of the assets (ORS 113.035) and the caption must state the value of the estate, because the filing fee is tiered by it (ORS 21.105(1)).

Generate the probate packet. Sunset assembles the paperwork for your route, whether a petition for appointment of a personal representative or a simple estate affidavit, ready to submit through OJD eFile or to file on paper at the counter at 309 State Street or by mail to Hood River.

Find a local probate attorney. When a matter is contested or otherwise calls for counsel, Sunset connects families to a vetted Oregon probate attorney serving Hood River County.

Sunset is free for families. Revenue comes from bank partners that pay Sunset while estate funds sit in an FDIC-insured estate account ($3M coverage).