Tillamook County, OR Probate Information

Before you file anything at 201 Laurel Avenue, 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 Tillamook specifics make the homework worth doing first. The court publishes no probate email address at all, so a question that would be a two-line email elsewhere is a phone call or a counter visit here. And the counter may close over the lunch hour: the county's page for the court and the court's own local rule both show a break from noon to 1:00 p.m. that the court's website does not, so an unplanned second trip costs half a day on a coastal county's roads.

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)). Tillamook adds a second reason to be thorough: every accounting you file later must be in the statewide format, which is mandatory here (SLR 9.161), and where cancelled checks or vouchers are not available a list of the expenditures they would have shown must accompany the accounting (SLR 9.185), so an account or a payment you did not track becomes a problem twice. Sunset's asset discovery work, searching more than 2,300 financial institutions, exists for this step, so the petition you file in Tillamook states the estate accurately the first time.

The Tillamook County Circuit Court, on the main floor of the county courthouse at 201 Laurel Avenue, Tillamook, OR 97141, is the only probate filing location for the county. There is no branch courthouse and no second counter, and there is no post office box: mail goes to the same street address, and the court asks that anything mailed be sent at least seven days before it needs to arrive. The court serves all of Tillamook County, the stretch of the north Oregon coast between the Coast Range and the Pacific, including the cities of Tillamook, Bay City, Garibaldi, Rockaway Beach, Nehalem, Manzanita and Wheeler, and the unincorporated communities around them such as Netarts, Oceanside and Pacific City. One name causes real confusion: the city of Wheeler is in Tillamook County and follows the rules on this page, while Wheeler County is a different place far inland in north central Oregon and is one of the six Oregon counties where probate belongs to a county court rather than a circuit court.

Tillamook County Circuit Court is the entire 27th Judicial District, which consists of Tillamook County and has two judges (ORS 3.012(1)(aa); ORS 3.012 groups Oregon's circuit courts into 27 judicial districts). That matters mainly by contrast: several Oregon courts share a website and staff with a second county, so a search can easily land a filer on another county's page. Tillamook has its own page, its own local rules and its own calendar. Probate here sits in the circuit court, not a county court: 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 Tillamook is one of the others. Oregon settled this for Tillamook long before that: ORS 3.130(1)(a) transferred all judicial jurisdiction, authority, powers, functions and duties of the county courts and their judges to the circuit courts in Baker, Clackamas, Columbia, Coos, Douglas, Jackson, Josephine, Klamath, Lake, Lane, Marion and Tillamook Counties, leaving the county court only the transaction of county business. The practical consequence is that everything statewide applies here, including OJD eFile and the Oregon Judicial Department's online case search, neither of which reaches those six county courts.

Three other offices matter to an estate and none of them takes a probate filing, which is easy to get wrong in Tillamook because two of them are in the same building. The Tillamook County Clerk is at the same street address as the court, 503-842-3402, open 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Monday through Friday; it calls itself the official record keeper for Tillamook County and handles real property transactions, plats, passports, marriage licenses and elections. That is where a deed gets recorded when estate real property is sold or transferred, and the Clerk offers electronic recording; its recording page notes that the office does not accept credit or debit cards, so bring a check or money order. Nothing on any Clerk page mentions probate, and a search of the county website for the word returns nothing. The Tillamook County Justice Court sits in the same courthouse at 503-842-3416 and hears violations, small claims and evictions, acting as the municipal court for Tillamook, Bay City and Garibaldi; it is closed on Fridays and it has no probate jurisdiction. The Tillamook County Law Library is not in the courthouse at all: it is on the second floor of the Tillamook County Library at 1716 3rd Street, overseen by the county librarian.

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 Tillamook County, file in Tillamook. 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).

In person is the default here, and that changed on February 1, 2026. The previous edition of the local rules had a brief SLR 3.051 that told anyone wishing to appear remotely to obtain permission and how to place the call. The rule effective February 1, 2026 is twelve subsections long and starts from the opposite premise. SLR 3.051(1) provides that except as the rule allows, counsel, parties and witnesses are required to appear in person unless the party has filed a motion and declaration explaining the need for remote appearance at least 48 hours before the hearing and the court has signed the proposed order, or the court has given prior permission for that case and hearing. SLR 3.051(9) is the subsection a self-represented personal representative should read twice: pro se parties in all cases shall be required to appear in person except with prior permission from the court. Two openings soften it. SLR 3.051(2) says most hearings other than evidentiary motions, criminal trials and juvenile delinquency hearings have remote appearance options via Webex for counsel and parties, and SLR 3.051(3) says no permission is required if remote appearance is already designated on the notice or another court order. The court's home page states the same rule in plainer words: all cases are to be in person unless the assigned judge approved a Webex appearance before the scheduled court date, and if your hearing is by Webex you will receive an invitation by email the day before. Failure to connect at the scheduled time counts as a failure to appear (SLR 3.051(11)).

Asking to appear remotely has two different clocks, and they are not the same requirement. The local rule sets the legal deadline: a motion and declaration filed at least 48 hours before the hearing, with a proposed order (SLR 3.051(1) and (10)(a)). The court's technology page sets the scheduling deadline: to request an appearance by video you must contact Court Calendaring directly no later than 5 days before the hearing, at 503-842-2596 option 5, and all requests to appear by telephone must be preapproved by a judge. The same page says the court needs 5 days' notice of which parties will call in where several are joining by phone, and the local rule treats telephone as a rare exception with the caller bearing long-distance charges (SLR 3.051(10)(c)). Work back from the 5-day calendaring deadline, not the 48-hour rule deadline. If you are approved and then cannot connect, the court asks you to call the main number and select option 0 for immediate assistance.

Accountings are on a mandatory format, with a local vouchers rule attached. Most Oregon districts leave the statewide accounting format optional: an accounting filed substantially in that format must be accepted in every judicial district, and UTCR 9.160 lets a district make it mandatory by adopting an SLR 9.161. Tillamook has adopted one, and its reach is wide: SLR 9.161 provides that all accountings filed with the court, in estate, conservatorship and trusts, shall be in the format set out in UTCR 9.160, so it covers a decedent's estate by its own words. SLR 9.185 then adds a documentation rule: when cancelled checks or vouchers are not available, unless the court orders otherwise, a list of expenditures as reflected by the cancelled checks or vouchers shall accompany all accountings. Keep the proof of every payment out of the estate from the start, and where a bank no longer returns cancelled checks, build the list as you go rather than reconstructing it at accounting time. The court hosts its own copy of the statewide accounting packet, which also carries the UTCR 9.180 depository certification of funds on deposit and an exhibit for disclosing fiduciary advancements and reimbursements.

The counter's hours depend on which government page you read, and there is no probate email to fall back on. The court publishes customer service window hours of 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and phone hours of 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday excluding holidays. The county's own page for the court publishes the same window hours split around a lunch break, 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., with business hours of 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. SLR 1.151 gives court hours for conducting business and the filing of documents as 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday excluding state holidays. Two of the three show a midday closure and the court's own site does not, so treat noon to 1:00 p.m. as uncertain and call ahead. Unlike several other Oregon courts, Tillamook publishes no probate mailbox, no division mailboxes and no general court address, so there is no email route for a quick question. What it does publish is an after-hours drop box, which the county's page for the court locates at the top of the stairs on the south end of the courthouse, and an electronic filing deadline of 11:59:59 p.m. (UTCR 21.080(2)).

Records are unusually good inside the building. The court states that it provides an OJCIN computer in the hallway on the main floor of the courthouse, available to the public, on which statewide circuit court case information and most filed documents can be reviewed for most cases, subject to the protections state and federal law require. That is a wider window than the free statewide search gives anyone at home, because the Oregon Judicial Department's online records search returns the case index and register of actions but no documents. The Court Records page adds that documents in newer cases can be reviewed on the kiosk computers in the courthouse lobby, that older files that have not been digitized must be retrieved on request, that copies are ordered with the statewide records request form or in writing to the court, that staff calculate the cost after the request is made and all fees must be paid in full before copies are made, and that you should allow 5 business days from receipt of the request, longer for files more than 10 years old or for large requests. The court can email PDF copies and certify them electronically for a fee if you can print in colour. Adoption and juvenile cases are confidential.

Winter closes this court from time to time, and the orders are public. Between 2024 and 2025 the presiding judge filed six orders closing or limiting services in the Tillamook circuit court because of emergency conditions, every one of them for inclement weather, each tied to a named date on which county offices closed. Each order also addresses the effect on the statute of limitations. None of them is a standing closure and none is in force by its own terms, but a filer working to a deadline in a coastal winter should check the court's page and rules page before driving to the courthouse, and should prefer the electronic filing system or the drop box when the weather is bad.

Many Tillamook 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. Several 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, and this court publishes no probate email address, so there is no quick way to ask a question in writing. The local rules also front-load two obligations on the person appointed: a non-professional personal representative must register for the court's education class within 15 days of appointment and complete it within 90, on pain of removal (SLR 9.076), and every accounting must be in the UTCR 9.160 format (SLR 9.161) with a list of expenditures standing in for any cancelled checks the bank no longer returns (SLR 9.185). Appearance is the third: counsel and parties are required to appear in person unless the court has approved otherwise, and self-represented parties in particular are required to appear in person except with prior permission (SLR 3.051(1) and (9)), which for an out-of-area family means travel to the coast. 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 coastal real property, timber, dairy or farm land, a fishing vessel or permit, a business or out-of-state property has to be valued, sold or divided, or when a conservatorship or guardianship has to run alongside the estate. Court staff can explain procedure but cannot give legal advice. Sunset can connect families to a vetted Oregon probate attorney serving Tillamook 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, Tillamook County real property and unclaimed property, so you know the estate's value before you file and as estate settlement begins. That matters here three times over: the petition must state the extent and nature of the assets (ORS 113.035), the caption must state the value of the estate because the filing fee is tiered by it (ORS 21.105(1)), and every accounting you file must be in the UTCR 9.160 format with a list of expenditures where cancelled checks are not available (SLR 9.161; SLR 9.185).

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 public window on the main floor at 201 Laurel Avenue, in the after-hours drop box, or by mail to the same address.

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 Tillamook 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).