Camp County, TX Probate Information

Before you file anything in Pittsburg, 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 Camp County, because the county publishes no probate instructions, no forms and no docket information, so there is no local sheet to correct a wrong turn, and because the counter keeps short days. A wrong route means starting over.

Identify every bank and credit union account, retirement plan, brokerage holding, life insurance policy, vehicle and parcel of Camp 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. Sunset's asset-discovery work, searching more than 2,300 financial institutions, exists for exactly this step, so that the application filed with the Camp County Clerk describes the estate accurately the first time.

The county building at 126 Church Street in Pittsburg is the single probate filing location for the whole of Camp County. There is no branch, satellite or annex counter for estates: the County Clerk takes filings in Room 102. The court serves every part of the county, including Pittsburg, the county seat, the city of Rocky Mound and the rural areas between them, all of which appear as taxing units of the Camp County Appraisal District. The county's second building at 115 Dr. M L King Jr. Ave. houses the Commissioners Court and the voter registrar and is not a filing location for probate.

Venue is straightforward for a Camp 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 Camp County, the case belongs in the Camp County Court, even if they died in a hospital in Mount Pleasant, Longview or Tyler. 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 page. Camp County has no statutory probate court and no county court at law, so the Camp County Court, the constitutional county court, has original jurisdiction of probate proceedings (Estates Code § 32.002(a)), and the elected County Judge presides. Government Code Chapter 25, which creates every statutory county court and every statutory probate court in Texas, contains no Camp County entry, and the Office of Court Administration's 2025 county clerk directory records the Camp County Court as taking probate matters with no county court at law in the county. The county's own guardianship information sheet says the same thing from the county side in a single line naming the Camp County Court as the forum. The other trial courts seated in the county are the 76th and 276th District Courts and the Justice Court, none of which opens estates, and appeals from Camp County go to the Sixth Court of Appeals.

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 Camp County the district court in that sentence means the 76th District Court or the 276th District Court, both of which sit in the 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.

The county's only published court-procedure sheet is a guardianship sheet, and it is still the most useful local document a probate filer can read. The Camp County Clerk publishes a New Guardianship Filing Information Sheet and nothing at all for decedents' estates. Its requirements are guardianship-specific and do not apply to an estate: registration with the Judicial Branch Certification Commission, the guardian training module, and a criminal history background check delivered to the court at least ten days before the hearing, with a digital fingerprint check where the liquid estate value is $50,000 or more. What travels across to an estate is the county's own statement of where these matters go and how a date is obtained: the sheet names the Camp County Court as the court and gives the County Judge's number, 903-856-3845, for obtaining a court setting, adding that all requirements must be completed before a hearing will be scheduled. Because the sheet is written for guardianships, confirm the estate route with the County Clerk on 903-856-2731.

The published fee schedule is the wrong clerk's. Camp County's Fee Schedules page sits under the county's District Court menu and links a document headed for the Camp County District Clerk, covering civil and family filing fees effective January 1, 2022. Its "TOTAL BASE FEE" of $350.00 is a district court civil base: a $213 local consolidated fee under Local Government Code § 135.101(b) plus the $137 state consolidated fee. A probate case is priced from a different subsection, § 135.102(a)(1), at $223, which is why the probate base is $360.00. The schedule does carry one genuine probate line, and it is about matters that have already left the county court: "The District Clerk shall collect the same fees as the County Clerk would in any probate case." That is a fee rule for a transferred contested matter, not an instruction about where to open an estate. Estates are opened with the Camp County Clerk in Room 102.

The counter keeps split days and closes early on Friday, and that interacts with a statewide deadline. The County Clerk publishes hours of 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Friday. The clerk's records portal advertises a flat 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. weekday schedule, which is not what the county page says; the county page is the one to plan around. This matters because after an application to probate a document as an original will is e-filed, the wet-ink original must reach the clerk within three business days (Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 21(f)(12)). Check the county's 2026 holiday schedule, adopted September 17, 2025, before counting those days: it closes county offices on Good Friday, April 3, on Columbus Day, October 12, on November 26 and 27 for Thanksgiving, and on December 23, 24 and 25 for Christmas.

The county's online records search is land records, and the county's case system is not the statewide one. The OFFICIAL PUBLIC RECORD SEARCH link on the County Clerk's page reaches the clerk's own branded portal through an outside records vendor, and that portal searches documents, parties, deeds records and vital records, with vital records marked unavailable. It indexes recorded instruments, not estates, and nothing in it is a probate case search. The Office of Court Administration's 2025 county clerk directory records Camp County's case management system as eDoc Technologies, which is a different platform from the one that runs eFileTexas.gov and re:SearchTX, so a Camp County probate case that was not e-filed may not appear in the statewide portal at all. Ask the County Clerk rather than assuming an online lookup exists.

One court, one counter, and the district courts enter only on a contest. Camp County has no statutory probate court and no county court at law, so there is no question of which court to choose: the Camp County Court hears the estate (Estates Code § 32.002(a)) and the County Clerk in Room 102 takes the filing. The 76th and 276th District Courts sit in the same county and hear district court business, and the county publishes a district court schedule and a court coordinator's contact for them, but none of that is probate. A district court reaches a Camp County estate only if the County Judge transfers a contested matter to it under § 32.003(a)(2), or if a party's motion instead brings in an assigned statutory probate court judge under § 32.003(a)(1), and even then the county court keeps the management of the rest of the estate (§ 32.003(g)).

Publications age, so verify the contact block before you rely on it. The county's guardianship sheet is headed with a County Clerk who no longer holds the office, and the Office of Court Administration's directory still carries an older web address for the clerk's page. The office, the room number and the phone have been stable across every source checked, which is why this page leads with those rather than with a named officeholder's mailbox.

Plenty of uncontested Texas estates are handled without a lawyer, but Camp County is a harder place than most to do it alone, because the county publishes no probate instructions, no forms, no fee schedule and no docket information, and the only procedure sheet on its site is written for guardianships. 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 real property has to be sold or divided, when the estate is insolvent or a creditor is pressing, when a business or out-of-state property is involved, or when a guardianship has to run alongside the estate. The contested-matter route is another reason: if a matter becomes contested, the County Judge 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 district court, which in Camp County means the 76th or the 276th (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. County Clerk staff can explain procedure but cannot give legal advice. Sunset can connect families to a vetted Texas probate attorney serving Camp County and the surrounding Northeast Texas 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, Camp County real property and unclaimed property, so you know what the estate holds and which route fits before anything is filed in Pittsburg.

Generate the probate packet. Sunset assembles the paperwork for your estate settlement route, ready to e-file through eFileTexas.gov and to file with the Camp County Clerk. That matters more in a county that publishes no forms, no checklist and no instructions of its own for a decedent's estate.

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 Camp 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).