Crane County, TX Probate Information

Before you file anything in Crane, 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 created by state statute and are available on identical terms in all 254 Texas counties; they are covered on the Texas state page. Getting the answer before your first filing matters more in a county like Crane than in a metro county, because there is no probate coordinator, no self-help desk and no published local checklist to catch a mistake for you. There is one clerk's counter, one County Judge, and a filing fee you pay again if you have to start over.

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

The Crane County Courthouse at 201 W. 6th Street in Crane is the single probate filing location for the whole county. There is no branch, annex or satellite counter for estates: filings, payments and certified copies are handled by the County Clerk in Room 110, and the court that hears the case sits in the same building. The court serves every part of the county, including the city of Crane and the unincorporated areas around it.

Venue is the ordinary Texas rule: 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 Crane County, the case belongs in the Crane County Court even if they died in a hospital in Odessa, Midland or San Angelo. 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, and Crane is unambiguous. Government Code Chapter 25 creates every statutory county court and statutory probate court in Texas and contains no Crane County entry, so there is no county court at law here and no statutory probate court. That puts Crane in the largest of the three Texas categories: the Crane County Court has original jurisdiction of probate proceedings (Estates Code § 32.002(a)) and the elected County Judge presides. Do not caption a Crane County estate for a probate court or a county court at law; the county has neither.

There is a second Crane peculiarity worth knowing before you walk in. The county clerk and the district clerk are the same elected officer, working from the same room, phone and email address, which is the joint-clerk arrangement Government Code § 51.501(a) provides for in a county with a population of less than 8,000. General Texas guidance tells readers never to open an estate with a district clerk, and that guidance is right about the office: probate is county-court business and belongs on the county clerk side of the desk. In Crane the same person simply wears both hats, so seeing the district clerk title on the door is not a sign you are in the wrong place.

If a matter in the proceeding becomes contested, the case does not necessarily stay with the County Judge. 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. 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 comes back to the county court when it is resolved.

The district court in that sentence is a specific one. The 109th Judicial District is composed of Andrews, Crane and Winkler counties, and its terms in Crane County begin on the first Mondays in February and August (Government Code § 24.211). The county's own District Court page names the 109th District Court and Judge John L. Pool, with a Crane mailing address at P.O. Box 578 (verified July 2026). That statutory term schedule is not a probate docket and should not be read as one; it is simply where a contested Crane County probate matter would land if the County Judge transferred it rather than requesting an assigned statutory probate court judge.

One officer holds both clerk offices, and that is not a website error. Crane County's County Clerk page and District Clerk page publish the same person, the same Room 110 at 201 W. 6th Street, the same (432) 558-3581 line, the same fax and the same [email protected] mailbox, and the county's filed sheriffs' fee schedule is signed by the "County/District Clerk". Government Code § 51.501(a) provides that a county with a population of less than 8,000 elects a single clerk to perform the duties of the district clerk and the county clerk unless the voters keep the offices separate. Probate is still county-court business, and it is still the county clerk function that receives it; in Crane the same officer simply performs both roles.

The counter week is four and a half days, and the money clock closes earlier than the door. The clerk publishes hours of 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Friday, with "No monetary transactions after 4:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday" and "No monetary transactions after 3:30 p.m. on Friday". If you are walking a filing in and paying at the counter, aim for the morning. If you are filing electronically, this matters less, because an electronically filed document is timely if it is filed before midnight on the day it is due (Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 21(f)(5)).

The county prices probate to the dollar, which is rare at this size. Most small Texas counties publish either nothing or a single lump figure. Crane publishes a five-page schedule with a printed effective date of January 1, 2024 that breaks the $223.00 local fee into thirteen statutory line items, adds the $137.00 state fee, prints a $360.00 grand total, and then prices the citation, the letters, the judge's fee, the bond approval, the oath, the late inventory, the annual and final accounts, the application to sell property and a claim against the estate. It also publishes a separately dated sheriffs' and constables' fee schedule, adopted July 23, 2024 and effective January 1, 2025. Between the two documents a Crane County filer can budget an estate before filing anything, which is worth doing because the county offers no other written guidance.

The county's online records portal is not a case search, and it is stale about the office. The County Clerk links an EagleWeb site covering documents recorded since January 1, 1850. That is the recorded instrument index, the deed-records side of the office, and it does not hold probate case files. It also still displays the name of a former clerk and a set of office hours that does not match the clerk's own page. Where the two disagree, the clerk's page is authoritative. For probate records, ask at the counter.

Almost nothing about local probate practice is published, and the honest advice is to phone. Crane County publishes no probate page, no probate docket, no docket day or time, no hearing location beyond the courthouse, no remote appearance rule, no e-filing notice, no pro se policy and no local probate forms. The statewide rules fill the gap: attorneys must e-file, an unrepresented party may but need not (Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 21(f)(1)), and the original will has to reach the clerk within three business days of an electronically filed application (Rule 21(f)(12)). Everything else, from when the County Judge hears probate matters to whether proposed orders should be lodged in advance, has to come from the County Clerk at (432) 558-3581. The one window the county does give onto the court's probate work is the monthly report on county court appointments and approved fees that the clerk posts, which shows whether the court has been appointing attorneys or guardians ad litem.

A contest goes to a specific district court, or to an assigned probate judge. Crane County has no statutory probate court and no county court at law, so a contested matter takes the Estates Code § 32.003 route: 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. The district court for Crane County is the 109th, composed of Andrews, Crane and Winkler counties, whose terms in Crane County begin on the first Mondays in February and August (Government Code § 24.211). Even after a transfer, the Crane County Court keeps the management of the rest of the estate (§ 32.003(g)).

Uncontested Crane County estates are handled without a lawyer every year, and nothing in the county's rules requires counsel. 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 mineral or royalty interests are in the estate, 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, Crane County publishes no probate forms, no checklist and no procedure sheet, so every document is drafted from scratch with no local template to follow. Second, the county publishes no docket, hearing schedule or remote appearance rule, so scheduling runs through a phone call rather than a portal. Third, 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. County Clerk staff can explain procedure but cannot give legal advice. Sunset can connect families to a vetted Texas probate attorney serving Crane County and the surrounding Permian Basin 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, Crane 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 with the Crane County Clerk.

Generate the probate packet. Sunset assembles the paperwork for your route, drafted from the Estates Code because Crane County publishes no probate forms of its own, and captioned for the Crane County Court rather than a probate court or county court at law the county does not have.

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 Crane 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).