Comal County, TX Probate Information

Before you file anything in New Braunfels, know what is 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 the first filing matters here because Comal's probate desk is strict about the mechanics: a death certificate is required for every new case, every document has to go in as a separate lead document, an order has to travel in its own envelope, and the county states plainly that an application to probate a will "will not be posted until the original will is received." A filing that arrives in the wrong shape is returned for correction, and a case that starts down the wrong route has to start over.

Identify every bank and credit union account, retirement plan, brokerage holding, life insurance policy, vehicle and parcel of Comal 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 court. An accurate list also drives what Comal charges you, because its schedule prices the inventory and appraisement, an application to sell real or personal property and each set of letters separately. Sunset's asset-discovery work, searching more than 2,300 financial institutions, exists for exactly this step, so that the application filed at 199 Main Plaza describes the estate accurately the first time.

The Landa Annex at 199 Main Plaza in New Braunfels is the probate location for the whole of Comal County. The County Court at Law Clerk's Office takes the filing in Suite 1013 and all three county courts at law sit on the first floor of the same building in Suite 1102, with the Comal County Law Library in the basement at B102. The County Clerk keeps branch offices at 160 Oak Drive in Sattler and 30470 Cougar Bend in Bulverde, and a separate recording and vital-statistics counter at 150 N Seguin, Suite 1037 in New Braunfels, but the county routes estates, wills, guardianships and mental health matters to the County Court at Law Clerk's Office, so start there. The court serves every community in the county, including New Braunfels, Bulverde, Garden Ridge, Canyon Lake, Sattler and Spring Branch. Because attorneys file electronically through eFileTexas.gov and settings are requested through the clerk rather than at a counter, most of an uncontested estate can be handled without a trip to the Plaza; the two things that pull you back are the original will and the hearing.

Venue is straightforward for a Comal 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 Comal County, the case belongs here even if they died in a hospital in San Antonio or Austin. 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 a generic page gets wrong in a county like this one. Comal County has no statutory probate court. It has three statutory county courts, County Court at Law No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 of Comal County (Government Code § 25.0481), and because the Legislature wrote no probate exception into the Comal provisions, each of them takes the probate jurisdiction that general law gives a statutory county court (Government Code § 25.0003(d)). That jurisdiction is concurrent with, not instead of, the Comal County Court: in a county with a county court at law exercising original probate jurisdiction and no statutory probate court, the two courts "have concurrent original jurisdiction of probate proceedings" (Estates Code § 32.002(b)). The county says the same thing from its own side. Each court's page states that the courts at law have jurisdiction in probate and guardianship matters, and the county's County Judge page states that the County Judge "may consider some juvenile, probate and mental competency cases" while "in Comal County, the primary function of the Judge is to be the presiding officer of the Commissioners Court." In practice that means your estate is heard by one of the three courts at law, but the county publishes no rule for which one, so ask on 830-221-1240, option 2.

If a matter in the proceeding becomes contested, the mechanism in a county court at law county is a transfer, and it is not the same provision that applies in a county with only a constitutional county court. Under Estates Code § 32.004(a), in a county in which there is no statutory probate court but in which there is a 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, transfer the contested matter to the county court at law. The judge of the county court may also transfer the entire proceeding to the county court at law (§ 32.004(b)). Because Comal's estates are already before a county court at law in the ordinary case, the practical effect is that a contest stays inside the Landa Annex with a judge who is a licensed attorney, rather than being sent out to a district court. The Comal County District Clerk and the district courts handle family law and district matters and do not take a decedent's estate.

Two buildings, and the wrong one costs you a morning. The Comal County Clerk runs its recording, land records and vital-statistics counter at 150 N Seguin, Suite 1037, and its County Court at Law Clerk's Office, which is the probate counter, at 199 Main Plaza, Suite 1013, in the Landa Annex on the Main Plaza. The three county courts at law are on the first floor of the same Main Plaza building and the county law library is in its basement, so once you are at 199 Main Plaza everything probate is under one roof. The Commissioners Court, where the County Judge presides, is at 100 Main Plaza and is not where estates are filed.

Everything goes in as a lead document, and an order travels alone. This is the Comal rule that most often causes a returned filing, and the county states it three separate ways: "Documents: Lead Documents only", "Cover Letters: File as a lead document", and, in its list of reasons a filing comes back, "Return for Correction (Most Common) Documents need to be filed as separate lead documents." On top of that, orders are handled separately: "All orders must be filed in a separate envelope from any pleading due to fees with New Pleadings, Inventories, Annual Accounts, and Annual Reports", and "Orders: Are only filed as a Subsequent filing, not as an Initial." A filer who attaches the will to the application, or bundles the proposed order into the same envelope as the pleading, will have the envelope bounced.

The original will is a gate, not a formality. The statewide rule is that the original must reach the clerk within three business days of the electronic application (Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 21(f)(12)). Comal attaches a consequence the statute does not spell out: "The Application to Probate will not be posted until the original will is received." So the case does not begin to move, and a setting cannot usefully be requested, until the wet-ink will is physically at 199 Main Plaza, Suite 1013.

Settings run through the clerk and a named probate auditor. Comal does not run a self-scheduling portal for estates. You e-file a Notice of Hearing, the clerk forwards it to the Probate Coordinator, it comes back signed and is accepted, and your notification arrives through your electronic filing service provider rather than by email from the office. For a probate setting the county names the Probate Auditor, Michele Styslinger, at 830-221-1186 (verified July 2026), and County Court at Law No. 1 publishes a weekly probate docket at 9 a.m. on Wednesdays. No filing-to-hearing interval is published anywhere, so ask rather than assume.

Signed orders now come from re:SearchTX, and that is a September 2025 change worth planning around. The County Court at Law Clerk publishes a formal notice: "Pursuant to Texas Rules of Civil Procedure 21(f)(10), the Comal County Clerk's Office is integrated with re: Search TX, an approved electronic filing and service system. Effective September 1, 2025, the Clerk's Office will discontinue the practice of e-serving or emailing Court Orders and Notices of Court Orders. All parties will be directed to obtain such documents directly through re: Search TX." If you are settling an estate from out of town, register on that portal before your hearing rather than waiting for an order to land in your inbox, and remember that the portal charges for documents and supplies an unofficial copy, with the clerk remaining the official custodian.

Fees are itemized, and the citation is not in the base. Comal's schedule prices the case at $360.00 and then charges separately for issuance, bonds, oaths, inventories, accounts and long documents, and the county warns filers directly: "Citation and service fees are not included in initial case filing fees, and must be selected from Optional Services", and "Call the office if you are not sure what fees are needed." Insufficient fees are on the county's published list of reasons a filing is returned for correction, so it is cheaper to call than to guess.

Three courts, no published assignment rule, and the County Judge is not out of the picture as a matter of law. Comal County has County Court at Law No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 (Government Code § 25.0481), each holding probate jurisdiction concurrent with the Comal County Court (Estates Code § 32.002(b); Government Code § 25.0003(d)). The county publishes no rule for which court gets which estate, and the three publish different things: No. 1 publishes the weekly probate docket, No. 2 and No. 3 publish the executor and administrator bond form, and No. 2 and No. 3 publish Zoom arrangements. Ask the probate desk which court your case is in before you rely on a form or a docket day, and note the county's own e-filing pages cite a Supreme Court order that has since been superseded and vacated; the controlling order on attorney e-filing is Misc. Docket No. 13-9164, signed December 9, 2013.

Uncontested Comal County estates are handled without a lawyer every month, and the county's probate desk publishes enough procedure for a careful person to follow it, including what an unrepresented filer must put in a signature block. 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. Three local factors weigh in favor of an attorney more than they would elsewhere. Comal publishes no application, order, oath or inventory form, so every substantive document is drafted from scratch. The county's filing mechanics are exacting, and its own published list of reasons a filing is returned for correction is led by documents that were not filed as separate lead documents. And the contested-matter route matters: if a matter becomes contested, the judge of the county court may on the judge's own motion, and shall on the motion of any party, transfer the contested matter, or the entire proceeding, to a county court at law (Estates Code § 32.004). County Court at Law Clerk staff can explain procedure but cannot give legal advice, and the county law librarian is not an attorney either. Sunset can connect families to a vetted Texas probate attorney serving Comal County and the New Braunfels 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, Comal County real property and unclaimed property, so you know what the estate holds and which estate settlement route fits before anything is filed in New Braunfels.

Generate the probate packet. Sunset assembles the paperwork for your route, drafted to Comal County's own requirements, including the separate lead documents its clerk requires in the eFileTexas.gov envelope and the signature-block detail the county asks for, ready to file with the County Court at Law Clerk's Office.

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 Comal 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).