Dallam County, TX Probate Information

Before you file anything in Dalhart, 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 identical in all 254 Texas counties; they are explained on the Texas state page. Doing that work first matters more than usual in Dallam County, because the county publishes no probate instructions, no forms and no fee schedule to correct a wrong assumption for you, and the person at the counter can explain procedure but cannot tell you which route to take.

Identify every bank and credit union account, retirement plan, brokerage holding, life insurance policy, vehicle, mineral or water interest and parcel of Dallam 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. That question is worth settling early in a county like this one, where farmland, irrigation and cattle interests often outweigh the bank balances. Sunset's asset-discovery work, searching more than 2,300 financial institutions, exists for exactly this step, so that the application filed with the Dallam County Clerk describes the estate accurately the first time.

The Dallam County Courthouse at 414 Denver Avenue in Dalhart is the single probate filing location for the whole county. There is no branch, satellite or annex counter for estates, and no second window: the clerk who takes the filing is the same officer who keeps the records of the 69th District Court. The court serves every part of Dallam County, including the Dallam County portion of Dalhart, Texline in the far northwest of the county, which the county's own history page records as the original county seat before the seat moved to Dalhart in 1903, and the farming and ranching country around them.

One local geography point is worth pausing on, because it decides which courthouse a family walks into. The city of Dalhart lies across a county line: part of it is in Dallam County and part of it is in Hartley County. A Dalhart address is therefore not by itself proof that the decedent lived in Dallam County. Venue turns on the county of residence, not on the mailing address or the nearest courthouse, so if the decedent lived on the Hartley County side of the city the estate belongs in that county and not here. Check which county the residence actually sat in, on the property record or the tax statement, before you file, and ask the County Clerk if you are unsure.

Venue is otherwise straightforward for a Dallam 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 Dallam County, the case belongs in the Dallam County Court, even if they died in a hospital in Amarillo or across the state line. 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. Dallam County has no statutory probate court and no county court at law. So the Dallam County Court, the constitutional county court, has original jurisdiction of probate proceedings (Estates Code § 32.002(a)), and the elected County Judge presides. The county's own County Judge page states the same allocation, that constitutional county judges have original jurisdiction in probate matters including mental illness and guardianships. A caption naming a probate court or a county court at law is wrong here. The other trial court seated in the county is the 69th District Court, which under Government Code § 24.171(a) is composed of Dallam, Hartley, Moore and Sherman counties; the county names Judge Kimberly Allen and publishes the court's office at 715 S. Dumas Avenue, Room 302, Dumas, TX 79029, 806-935-2700 (verified July 2026), and describes that judge's jurisdiction as including contested probates.

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. Three details matter in practice. A party's motion for the 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 practical point about the district court's calendar: it sits across four counties, and its terms in Dallam County begin on the 16th Monday after the second Mondays in January and July (Government Code § 24.171(b)(1)).

One step further out, an appeal from a Dallam County probate order does not go to the district court either. A final order issued by a probate court is appealable to the court of appeals (Estates Code § 32.001(c)), and Dallam County lies in the Seventh Court of Appeals District (Government Code § 22.201(h)). That court sits in Amarillo and names Dallam in its own list of counties served.

One officer, two clerkships, one counter. The county heads its page "County and District Clerk" and publishes a single officer, Terri Banks (verified July 2026), with one address, one telephone number and one mailbox for both offices. The county quotes the basis for it on that same page, from Texas Constitution article V, § 20: "provided, that in Counties having a population of less than 8,000 persons there may be an election of a single Clerk, who shall perform the duties of District and County Clerks", and Government Code § 51.501(a) provides for the same arrangement. In practice that means you cannot queue at the wrong window in Dalhart. It does not change which court has your case: an estate is filed in the Dallam County Court and is taken by that officer acting as clerk of the county court.

The county line runs through Dalhart, and it decides where you file. Part of the city is in Dallam County and part is in Hartley County, which is a separate county with its own clerk. Venue for a Texas decedent who had a domicile or fixed place of residence in the state is the county of that residence (Estates Code § 33.001(a)(1)), not the nearest courthouse and not the postal address, so two neighbors on the same Dalhart street can belong in different counties. Settle that question from the property record or the tax statement before you pay a filing fee.

Nothing about probate is published, and that is itself the local condition to plan around. Dallam County has no probate page, no probate fee schedule, no probate forms or checklists, no e-filing notice, no published local rules, no docket information, no online case search and no published counter hours. The county is not doing anything wrong: nothing requires a county of this size to publish any of it. But it means the statewide rules do the work here. Attorneys must e-file (Misc. Docket No. 13-9164), an unrepresented party may but need not (Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 21(f)(1)), the original will goes to the clerk within three business days (Rule 21(f)(12)), the base fee is $360.00 by statute (Local Government Code § 135.102(a)(1) and § 133.151(a)(1)), and everything genuinely local has to be confirmed on (806) 244-4751.

The one piece of court paperwork the county does publish is about appointments and their fees. The clerk's page carries an "Order to Pay Court Appointee" template and the state "Checklists for Report on Appointments and Fees Approved", which exist so that district and county clerks can meet the reporting duties in Government Code § 36.004 and Supreme Court Order 07-9188. The checklist states that each appointment must be made by written order and each approval of the payment of a fee by a separate written order, and it names attorney ad litem, guardian ad litem and guardian appointments among the case types covered. If an heirship or a guardianship in your estate needs an appointment, expect the court to sign separate written orders for the appointment and for the fee, and expect that fee to be reported.

The district court sits four counties wide, and its Dallam terms are set by statute. Government Code § 24.171(a) composes the 69th Judicial District of Dallam, Hartley, Moore and Sherman counties, and § 24.171(b)(1) provides that the terms of the 69th District Court begin in Dallam County on the 16th Monday after the second Mondays in January and July. The court's own office is in Dumas, in Moore County, at 715 S. Dumas Avenue, Room 302, on 806-935-2700, and the county describes the district judge's jurisdiction as including contested probates. None of that changes where an estate starts: original probate jurisdiction is in the county court under Estates Code § 32.002(a) and the application goes to the Dallam County Clerk. The district court reaches a Dallam probate matter only through the § 32.003 contested-matter route, and even then the county court keeps the management of the rest of the estate (§ 32.003(g)).

An appeal goes to Amarillo, not to the district court. A final order issued by a probate court is appealable to the court of appeals (Estates Code § 32.001(c)), and Dallam County is one of the counties in the Seventh Court of Appeals District (Government Code § 22.201(h)). That court names Dallam in its own counties-served list, has its offices on the second floor of the Potter County Courts Building in Amarillo at 350 SE 6th Avenue, Suite 2C, mails to P.O. Box 9540, Amarillo, TX 79105-9540 and answers on (806) 342-2650.

Uncontested estates are settled without a lawyer in counties like this one every year, but Dallam County gives a self-represented filer less to work from than most. Counsel earns its keep 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, an agricultural operation, a water right 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. The county publishes no probate forms, no instructions, no hours and no fee schedule, so every document is drafted from scratch and every local cost and deadline has to be established by telephone. The county line through Dalhart makes venue a real question rather than a formality, and a filing made in the wrong county has to be made again. 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. County Clerk staff can explain procedure but cannot give legal advice. Sunset can connect families to a vetted Texas probate attorney serving Dallam 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, Dallam County real property and agricultural or mineral interests, and unclaimed property, so you know what the estate holds and which estate settlement route fits before anything is filed in Dalhart.

Generate the probate packet. Sunset assembles the paperwork for your route, captioned for the Dallam County Court, the constitutional county court that actually has the case, and ready to file with the Dallam County Clerk at 414 Denver Avenue. That matters more in a county that publishes no forms and no instructions of its own.

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 Dallam 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).