Briscoe County, TX Probate Information

Before you file anything in Silverton, know what is actually in the estate and what it owes. Which Texas route fits, and whether an administration is needed at all, turns on whether there is a will, who the distributees are, what the assets are worth, and whether there are unpaid debts. Those routes are set by state statute and are the same in all 254 Texas counties; they are explained on the Texas state page. Getting the answer before your first filing matters more than usual in a county this size, because Briscoe County publishes no probate instructions, no forms and no docket calendar, so there is no local checklist to catch a wrong turn, and because the court cannot act on an application to probate a will until citation has been issued and posted and the posting period has run (Estates Code § 258.003). A wrong route means starting that clock over.

Identify every bank and credit union account, retirement plan, brokerage holding, life insurance policy, vehicle and parcel of Briscoe County or out-of-county real property, along with every debt, before you apply. How each asset is titled decides whether it passes through the estate at all: survivorship accounts, accounts with a named beneficiary and land covered by a recorded transfer on death deed pass outside the estate and never reach the county court. Farm and ranch land, mineral interests and equipment deserve particular attention here, because they are commonly held in forms that decide the answer. Sunset's asset-discovery work, searching more than 2,300 financial institutions, exists for exactly this step, so that the application filed with the Briscoe County Clerk describes the estate accurately the first time.

The Briscoe County Courthouse at 415 Main Street in Silverton is the single probate filing location for the whole county. There is no branch, satellite or annex counter for estates, and no second courthouse: the clerk takes filings at 415 Main Street and mail goes to P. O. Box 555 in Silverton. The court serves every part of the county, including Silverton and Quitaque and the ranch country between and around them. Quitaque has its own county commissioner, and the county directory lists a second justice of the peace, but neither office hears estates; a Quitaque family's probate case is filed in Silverton like everyone else's.

Venue is straightforward for a Briscoe County resident: you file in the county where the decedent lived, if the decedent had a domicile or fixed place of residence in Texas (Estates Code § 33.001(a)(1)). If the person lived in Briscoe County, the case belongs in the Briscoe County Court, even if they died in a hospital in Plainview, Amarillo or Lubbock. For a decedent with no Texas domicile or fixed residence, venue depends on where the death happened and where the estate or the nearest of kin are (§ 33.001(a)(2)).

Which court hears the case is the fact most often gotten wrong on a small Texas county. Briscoe County has no statutory probate court and no county court at law, so the Briscoe County Court, the constitutional county court, has original jurisdiction of probate proceedings (Estates Code § 32.002(a)), and the elected County Judge presides. That is confirmed from the statute side, because Government Code Chapter 25 creates no court in Briscoe County, and from the county side, because the county's list of offices runs from the County Judge and Commissioners Court through the constitutional offices to the district court, with no county court at law and no probate court anywhere in it. The other trial court seated in the county is the 110th District Court, which under Government Code § 24.212 is composed of Briscoe, Dickens, Floyd and Motley counties, with terms beginning in each county on the first Mondays in January and July. It does not open estates.

If a matter in the proceeding becomes contested, the case does not stay with the County Judge by default. Under Estates Code § 32.003(a), in a county with no statutory probate court and no county court at law exercising original probate jurisdiction, when a matter in a probate proceeding is contested the judge of the county court may, on the judge's own motion, or shall, on the motion of any party to the proceeding, either request the assignment of a statutory probate court judge to hear the contested matter (Government Code § 25.0022) or transfer the contested matter to the district court, which may then hear it as if originally filed there. In Briscoe County that district court is the 110th, whose judge and district attorney keep their offices in Floydada in neighboring Floyd County. Three details matter in practice. A party's motion for assignment of a statutory probate court judge beats a transfer: if it is filed before the county judge transfers the matter, the county judge shall grant it and may not transfer the case unless the motion is withdrawn (§ 32.003(b)). A party may file that motion before anything becomes contested, and it takes effect if the matter later does (§ 32.003(c)). And the county court keeps the rest of the case: if only the contested matter is assigned out or transferred, the county court continues to exercise jurisdiction over the management of the estate until the contested matter is finally disposed of (§ 32.003(g)), and the matter returns to the county court when it is resolved.

One clerk holds both offices, and it simplifies an estate more than it complicates one. Briscoe County's own pages title the officeholder the Briscoe County and District Clerk, publish the same box, street address, email, extension and fax on both office pages, and list the office once in the county directory as "County and District Clerk". That is the arrangement Government Code § 51.501(a) requires of a county under its population line unless the voters vote to keep the offices separate (§ 51.501(b)), and § 51.502 tells the joint clerk to authenticate county court acts with the county court seal and district court acts with the district court seal. For a probate filer it means one phone extension for everything, and it means that if a contested matter is later transferred to the 110th District Court under Estates Code § 32.003(a)(2), the paperwork does not move to a different office in a different building; the same clerk simply changes seals.

Nothing about the schedule is published, so the phone call is the process. Briscoe County publishes no counter hours for the clerk, no probate docket day, no docket start time, no filing-to-hearing interval and no remote appearance rule. Do not infer the counter's hours from the hours the Sheriff's Office publishes for itself, which is a different office. Call 806-823-2131 extension 2 before you drive to Silverton, and ask in the same call when the County Judge will hear the application and what the judge wants brought to the hearing. What the county does publish is a dated 2026 holiday schedule, and the closures left in the year are Labor Day on September 7, Columbus Day on October 12, Veterans Day on November 11, Thanksgiving on November 26 and 27, and Christmas Eve and Christmas Day on December 24 and 25.

Citation is posted on the courthouse, and that paces the case. In a county this size the notice mechanism is physical: on an application to probate a written will produced in court the clerk issues citation to all interested parties and it is served by posting (Estates Code § 258.001), the clerk hands it to the sheriff or a constable, who posts it at the courthouse door or the customary public notice spot at 415 Main Street and returns it with the date and location (§ 51.053(a) and (c)), and it must stay up at least 10 days before the return day, excluding the day of posting (§ 51.053(b)). The court cannot act on the application until that service has been made (§ 258.003). The sheriff's posting fee is set by the commissioners court (Local Government Code § 118.131) and Briscoe County does not publish its amount, so ask for it with the filing fee.

The county publishes a fee list with no probate fee on it, and the fees it does publish matter at the end of the estate rather than the beginning. The clerk's "FEES OF OFFICE" block sets Official Public Record recording at $25.00 for the first page and $4.00 for each additional page per document, photocopies at $1.00 per page, certified death certificates at $21.00 for the first and $4.00 for each additional copy ordered at the same time, and certified birth certificates at $23.00, with no printed effective date, so confirm before you rely on them. Those recording figures are the ones a family meets when a probate result has to be put on the land records: an order admitting a will as a muniment of title (Estates Code chapter 257) or a small estate affidavit used to pass a homestead, which must be recorded in the deed records of a county where the homestead sits (§ 205.006(a)). The base court filing fee is not on the county's list because it is not the county's to set: it is fixed by statute at $360.00 (Local Government Code § 135.102(a)(1) and § 133.151(a)(1)).

There is no online case search, and no county records portal to mistake for one. Briscoe County runs neither. Records are requested from the clerk at 806-823-2131 extension 2, and an e-filed document may or may not surface in the statewide re:SearchTX portal, which is a registration-required, pay-per-document service that describes its own copies as unofficial and names the clerk of the court as the official custodian. Commercial sites that resell Texas county records are not the county and are not the court, and their contact details for Briscoe County do not always match what the county itself publishes.

One address does almost everything, but the district-court players are an hour away. The clerk's counter and the County Judge are both at 415 Main Street in Silverton, while the 110th District Court's judge and the 110th District Attorney keep their offices in Floydada, and the county's own page identifies the Seventh Court of Appeals as the appellate court serving Briscoe County. That geography only matters if a matter becomes contested and goes to the district court under Estates Code § 32.003(a)(2), or if an order is appealed. For the ordinary uncontested estate, everything happens in Silverton.

Plenty of uncontested estates are settled in small Texas counties without a lawyer, and nothing about Briscoe County forbids it. Counsel earns its keep here when a will or an appointment is likely to be challenged, when there is no will and the heirs have to be determined, when farm or ranch land, mineral interests or a business have to be sold or divided, when the estate is insolvent or a creditor is pressing, or when a guardianship has to run alongside the estate. Three local factors weigh in favor of an attorney more than they would in a metro county. First, Briscoe County publishes no probate forms, no checklist and no procedure sheet, so every document is drafted from scratch with no local template to work from. Second, nothing about the schedule is published, so the pace of the case depends on knowing what to ask the clerk for. Third, the contested-matter route matters: if a matter becomes contested, the County Judge, who need not be a lawyer, may on the judge's own motion and shall on the motion of any party request the assignment of a statutory probate court judge or transfer the contested matter to the 110th District Court (Estates Code § 32.003(a)), and a motion for assignment filed before a transfer must be granted (§ 32.003(b)), which is a timing point that is easy to miss without counsel. Clerk staff can explain procedure but cannot give legal advice. Sunset can connect families to a vetted Texas probate attorney serving Briscoe County and the surrounding Panhandle counties.

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, Briscoe County real property and unclaimed property, so you know what the estate holds and which estate settlement route fits before anything is filed in Silverton.

Generate the probate packet. Sunset assembles the paperwork for your route, which matters more in a county that publishes no forms and no template of its own, ready to file with the Briscoe County Clerk or to e-file through eFileTexas.gov.

Find a local probate attorney. When a matter is contested or otherwise calls for counsel, Sunset connects families to a vetted Texas probate attorney serving Briscoe 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).