Clay County, TX Probate Information

Before you file anything in Henrietta, 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 Clay County publishes no probate forms and no hearing calendar, the County Clerk's counter closes to the public at 4:00 p.m. and may close during the day for court hearings or training, and there is one office to work with rather than a specialist probate department. A wrong route means starting over.

Identify every bank and credit union account, retirement plan, brokerage holding, life insurance policy, mineral interest, vehicle and parcel of Clay 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 Clay County Clerk describes the estate accurately the first time.

The Clay County Courthouse Annex at 214 N. Main Street in Henrietta is the single probate filing location for the whole county. There is no branch, satellite or annex counter for estates: the County Clerk takes filings there, and the County Judge, who hears them, has an office in the same building. The court serves every part of the county. The county's own pages describe 1,088.7 square miles of land served from Henrietta, the county seat, with school districts at Bellevue, Henrietta, Midway and Petrolia, smaller communities such as Dean, the highways US 82 and US 287 crossing the county, and Lake Arrowhead State Park. Because attorneys file electronically through eFileTexas.gov and the clerk welcomes anyone else to do the same, much of the paperwork in an uncontested estate can be handled without a trip to Henrietta.

Venue is straightforward for a Clay 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 Clay County, the case belongs in the Clay County Court, even if they died in a hospital in Wichita Falls. 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. Clay County has no statutory probate court and no county court at law, so the Clay County Court, the constitutional county court, has original jurisdiction of probate proceedings (Estates Code § 32.002(a)), and the elected County Judge presides. The other courts seated in the county do something else: the Justice of the Peace hears small claims and related matters, and the 97th District Court, which Clay County shares with Archer and Montague Counties, is served by the separate District Clerk at the courthouse and 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 Clay County that district court is the 97th. 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 clerk is not in the courthouse, and the county runs three buildings. Clay County publishes a Clay County Courthouse at 100 N. Bridge Street on the square, a Clay County Courthouse Annex at 214 N. Main Street north of the courthouse, and a Clay County Bridge Street Annex at 210 N. Bridge Street in the former bank building. The County Clerk, who takes probate filings, and the County Judge, who hears them, are both in the Courthouse Annex at 214 N. Main Street. The District Clerk, who does not open estates, is at 100 N. Bridge Street. Going to the wrong door here costs a trip, and the county does not publish which building a probate hearing is held in, so ask when your case is set.

The counter keeps early hours and can close without warning. The Clay County Clerk publishes hours of 7:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Monday through Friday with the annex closed from noon to 1:00 p.m., which is an early open and an early close by Texas county clerk standards, and the office warns on its own page and on its service notice that it "may close during the day to attend court hearings or training" and for inclement weather. The County Judge's office in the same building publishes 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. with the same lunch closure. Call (940) 538-4631 before driving in, and check the county's published holiday calendar.

The fee schedule shows you the statutory allocation, not twelve local charges. Clay County's fee sheet is unusually transparent for a county this size: it breaks the base probate case into an appellate judicial system fee, a court facility fund, a county clerk filing fee, records management, court reporter, law library, courthouse security, language access, jury, dispute resolution, guardianship and probate administration, and judge's education and support items, plus the state consolidated fee. The twelve local items are the statutory distribution of the single $223 local consolidated fee under Local Government Code § 135.102(b); they are where the money goes, not extra charges. Read the bottom line, not the list.

Anyone may e-file here, and the clerk says so in writing. Many small Texas counties leave a self-represented filer guessing. Clay County's service notice states plainly that the office accepts electronic filings in civil and criminal cases and that "Anyone is welcome to e-file at www.eFileTexas.gov." That matches the statewide rule, under which attorneys must e-file and an unrepresented party may but is not required to (Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 21(f)(1)). Clay publishes no county-specific mandate date. Whichever way you file the application, the wet-ink original will still has to reach the clerk within three business days (Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 21(f)(12)).

There is no county probate case search, and the property records portal is not one. The Clay County Clerk's page offers a criminal records portal and a civil records button that points at the statewide re:SearchTX site, and states that property records are not available online at all, with deed records digitized back to the 1960s. The clerk's posted office rules add that public terminals are provided for searching at the counter, along with rules about photographing records without flash and keeping to a working space. For a definitive answer on a probate file, call or visit the County Clerk.

One document the clerk links is an older edition, and it is worth knowing which part still holds. The clerk's page links a copy of the Office of Court Administration's court structure chart under the heading court jurisdiction. The hosted copy is an earlier edition: it counts 19 statutory probate courts in 10 counties, where the current December 2025 chart counts 25 in 12 counties. None of that changes anything for Clay County, which has neither a statutory probate court nor a county court at law, and the part of the chart that describes a constitutional county court is unchanged and correct: probate, mental health and guardianship, with contested matters transferable to the district court.

One court, one counter, and the district court only enters on a contest. Clay County has no statutory probate court and no county court at law, so there is no question of which court to choose: the Clay County Court hears the estate (Estates Code § 32.002(a)) and the County Clerk takes the filing. The 97th District Court, shared with Archer and Montague Counties, reaches a Clay County probate matter only if the County Judge transfers a contested matter to it under § 32.003(a)(2), and even then the county court keeps the management of the rest of the estate (§ 32.003(g)).

Plenty of uncontested Clay County estates are handled without a lawyer, and the County Clerk's counter is used to helping people who are doing it themselves. 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 or a mineral interest 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. Three local factors weigh in favor of an attorney more than they would in a metro county. Clay County publishes no probate forms and no local procedure sheet, so every document is drafted from scratch. The county publishes no docket calendar or hearing information, so timing comes from the clerk's office rather than from a schedule you can read in advance. And the contested-matter route matters: 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 (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. The Clay County Clerk states its own limit plainly: "Clerk & staff do NOT give legal advice. We are not attorneys." Sunset can connect families to a vetted Texas probate attorney serving Clay County and the wider Wichita Falls area.

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, Clay County real property and mineral interests, and unclaimed property, so you know what the estate holds and which estate settlement route fits before anything is filed in Henrietta.

Generate the probate packet. Sunset assembles the paperwork for your route, drafted for a county that publishes no probate forms of its own, and ready to file with the Clay County Clerk through eFileTexas.gov or at the counter in the Courthouse Annex.

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 Clay 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).