Duval County, TX Probate Information

Before you file anything in San Diego, know what is actually in the estate and what it owes. Which Texas route fits, and whether a court 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. Getting the answer before your first filing matters here because Duval County publishes no probate instruction sheet, no probate forms and no docket information, and the one cost document it does publish carries a 2014 date. What the county does have is a small clerk's office that answers the phone: call 361-279-6272 and ask what the counter needs and what the current total is before you file, not after it bounces.

Identify every bank and credit union account, retirement plan, brokerage holding, life insurance policy, vehicle, mineral interest and parcel of Duval 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. Mineral and royalty interests are worth a specific look in this part of South Texas, because they are easy to miss and they are the assets most likely to keep an estate open. Sunset's asset-discovery work, searching more than 2,300 financial institutions, exists for exactly this step, so that the application filed with the Duval County Clerk describes the estate accurately the first time.

The Duval County Courthouse at 400 E. Gravis in San Diego is the single probate filing location for the whole of Duval County. There is no branch, satellite or annex counter for estates anywhere else in the county. There are two elected clerks in the building, and the one you want is the County Clerk on the first floor: the District Clerk's office, at P.O. Drawer 428, serves the 229th District Court and does not take estate applications.

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 Duval County, the case belongs in the Duval County Court, even if they died in a hospital in Corpus Christi, Laredo or San Antonio, because the place of death does not move venue for a Texas resident. 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 Duval County's own website makes it easy to get wrong. Duval County has no statutory probate court and no county court at law, so the Duval 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 is where every statutory county court and every statutory probate court in Texas is created, contains no Duval County entry, so there is no second court in the county with concurrent original probate jurisdiction and no choice of forum to make. Ignore the "Court at Law Office" label at the top of the county's County Judge page: caption the application to the Duval County Court, and not to a probate court or a county court at law, because the county has neither.

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 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 district court that would take a transferred contest is shared three ways, sits in terms, and its judge sits in another county. Government Code § 24.276 provides that the 229th Judicial District is composed of Duval, Jim Hogg and Starr counties, and that the terms of the 229th District Court begin in Duval County on the first Mondays in February and August, in Jim Hogg County on the first Mondays in June and December, and in Starr County on the first Mondays in April and October. The county publishes the 229th District Judge's chambers at 401 N. Britton Ave., Room 304, Rio Grande City, TX 78582, phone 956-716-4800, with a Duval County court coordinator reachable at 361-279-6233. Because a single district judge divides the year across three county seats, a party who wants a contested matter heard promptly should understand the § 32.003(a)(1) route, assignment of a statutory probate court judge, before defaulting to the transfer route in § 32.003(a)(2).

The county publishes a fee schedule, and the schedule is older than the fee. This is the single most useful local fact on this page. The Duval County Clerk's published cost list is headed "filing fees effective January 1st 2014" and prints "Probate $350.00". The Legislature set the consolidated amounts that make up the current $360.00 base in S.B. 41 effective January 1, 2022 (Local Government Code § 135.102(a)(1) and § 133.151(a)(1)), eight years after that schedule's date. So the county's probate line is not a local discount, it is a stale document, while the same schedule's guardianship and small estate lines at $360.00 happen to match the current base. Budget the statutory base and call 361-279-6272 to confirm the all-in total before you file.

The county's own County Judge page says "Court at Law Office", and Duval County has no county court at law. The heading over the judge's contact details on the county's website reads "Court at Law Office" followed by the judge's name, which is enough to make a careful filer caption an application to a court that does not exist here. Government Code Chapter 25, which creates every statutory county court and every statutory probate court in Texas, contains no Duval County entry, and the county's own description of the office is the constitutional one: the County Judge "has judicial responsibility for certain criminal, civil and probate matters" and "has appellate jurisdiction over matters arising from the justice courts". Caption to the Duval County Court.

Two elected clerks share the courthouse, and only one of them takes estates. Unlike the smallest Texas counties, Duval County has not combined the offices: the County Clerk, at P.O. Box 248, and the District Clerk, at P.O. Drawer 428, are separate offices in the same building with separate phone numbers and separate mailboxes. Estates go to the County Clerk on the first floor. Sending an application or an original will to the district-court mailbox is the easiest mistake to make here and the slowest to unwind, so use P.O. Box 248 and say at the counter that you are opening a probate matter.

Two different sets of published hours in one courthouse. The County Clerk publishes Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., with no lunch break. The County Judge's office and the District Clerk both publish 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Add to that a closure notice still posted on the clerk's page for April 9 through 11, whose linked notice is dated April 2025, and a county holidays calendar on the County Judge's page labeled 2023-2024. The posted calendars are not a reliable guide to any particular day, so call before you drive, especially if you are delivering an original will against the three-business-day deadline (Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 21(f)(12)).

The district court that would take a contested matter is shared across three counties, sits in terms, and its judge sits elsewhere. Government Code § 24.276 composes the 229th Judicial District of Duval, Jim Hogg and Starr counties and fixes the beginning of its Duval County terms on the first Mondays in February and August. The county publishes the judge's chambers at 401 N. Britton Ave., Room 304, Rio Grande City, in Starr County, roughly 100 miles southwest of San Diego, with a Duval County court coordinator at 361-279-6233. That is a practical argument for understanding the other route out of a contest before you need it: under Estates Code § 32.003(a)(1) a party may move for the assignment of a statutory probate court judge, that motion beats a transfer to the district court if it is filed first (§ 32.003(b)), and it may be filed before anything is contested at all (§ 32.003(c)).

The published dockets are criminal, and they are pictures. Duval County keeps a County Court dockets page with dated files going back several years, which looks at first like a court calendar. Every file the county labels with a case type is a criminal docket, the two 2025 files it labels only "Docket" are scanned images with no machine-readable text, the 2026 entries are unlinked postponement notes, and no probate setting, probate docket day or hearing calendar is published anywhere on the county's site. Do not try to read your hearing date off that page; ask the clerk and the County Judge's office.

Plenty of uncontested Texas estates are handled without a lawyer, and nothing Duval County publishes 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 or mineral interests have 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. First, Duval County publishes no probate forms and no instruction sheet, and the one cost document it does publish carries a 2014 effective date, so every document is drafted from scratch and every figure has to be confirmed by phone. Second, the contested-matter route matters and has a timing trap in it: 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)). Third, the district court that would otherwise take the contest is the 229th, shared with Jim Hogg and Starr counties, sitting in Duval County in terms that begin only in February and August, and chambered in Rio Grande City (Government Code § 24.276), so the choice of route can change how long a dispute takes. County Clerk staff can explain procedure but cannot give legal advice. Sunset can connect families to a vetted Texas probate attorney serving Duval County and the surrounding South 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, Duval County real property, mineral and royalty interests and unclaimed property, so you know what the estate holds and which estate settlement route fits before anything is filed in San Diego.

Generate the probate packet. Sunset assembles the paperwork for your route, captioned to the Duval County Court, the constitutional county court, and ready to file with the Duval County Clerk through eFileTexas.gov. Because the county publishes no forms and no instruction sheet, having the documents drafted correctly the first time is worth more here than in a county with a checklist.

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 Duval 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).