Floyd County, TX Probate Information

Before you file anything in Floydada, 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 here because the Floyd County Clerk's office is explicit that it cannot help you choose: its own fee sheet states that clerks cannot give legal advice or render "any service requiring the use of legal skill or knowledge, such as preparing an instrument", citing Government Code § 81.101. Staff can explain procedure and what the counter needs; they cannot tell you which application to file.

Identify every bank and credit union account, retirement plan, brokerage holding, life insurance policy, vehicle, mineral interest and parcel of Floyd 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 on the South Plains, where farmland, irrigation equipment and mineral or wind-lease 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 Floyd County Clerk describes the estate accurately the first time.

The Floyd County Courthouse at 105 South Main Street in Floydada is the single probate filing location for the whole county, and the counter is Room 101. There is no branch or satellite counter for estates. The court serves every part of Floyd County, including Floydada, Lockney and the farming country between them; the county's own election notices place polling places at the Floyd County Courthouse Annex, 110 S. Wall St. in Floydada, and the Lockney Dove Room at 305 N. Main in Lockney. Note that the annex on Wall Street is a different building from the courthouse on South Main, and probate filings go to the courthouse.

Venue is straightforward for a Floyd 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 Floydada or Lockney, the case belongs in the Floyd County Court, even if they died in a hospital in Plainview, Lubbock or Amarillo. 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. Floyd County has no statutory probate court and no county court at law: Government Code Chapter 25, which creates every statutory county court and statutory probate court in the state, contains no Floyd County entry. So the Floyd County Court, the constitutional county court, has original jurisdiction of probate proceedings (Estates Code § 32.002(a)), and the elected County Judge presides. The Office of Court Administration's 2025 county clerk directory records the same thing from the clerk's side, listing probate among the case types filed with the Floyd County Clerk for the county court and listing no county court at law at all. The other trial court seated in the courthouse is the 110th District Court, which under Government Code § 24.212(a) is composed of Briscoe, Dickens, Floyd and Motley counties, and whose terms begin in each of those counties on the first Mondays in January and July (§ 24.212(b)). The county names the Honorable William P. Smith as District Judge, in Room 204 of the courthouse on 806-983-3384 (verified July 2026).

Two clerks work in this courthouse and only one of them opens estates. Many Texas counties of Floyd's size elect a single officer to hold both clerkships, but Floyd County does not: it publishes a County Clerk in Room 101 and a separate District Clerk in Room 207 with her own phone and fax, and the Secretary of State's county clerk roster lists Floyd under "County Clerk" while listing neighboring counties that do combine the offices under "District and County Clerk". Take a probate application to the County Clerk in Room 101. The District Clerk serves the 110th District Court.

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. The district court that would receive a transfer here is the 110th District Court, shared with Briscoe, Dickens and Motley counties, whose terms in each county begin on the first Mondays in January and July (Government Code § 24.212).

One step further out, an appeal from a Floyd 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 Floyd County lies in the Seventh Court of Appeals District (Government Code § 22.201(h)). That court sits in Amarillo, names Floyd in its own list of forty-six counties served, and is linked from the Floyd County Clerk's own page.

Floyd County has a written local probate rule, which most counties this size do not, and it changes what you bring to the hearing. The County Clerk's page links a "Memo Pertaining to Probate Proceedings concerning e-file", issued by the Floyd County Judge to the Floyd County Clerk on May 17, 2018 and effective June 1, 2018. Addressed "TO ANY ATTORNEY CONDUCTING PROBATE PROCEEDINGS IN FLOYD COUNTY", it says the Floyd County Court "establishes the following guidelines for conducting a probate proceeding": in a probate with letters testamentary, the Order and the Oath of Executor "will be bench filed by the Court"; in a probate by muniment of title (Estates Code chapter 257), "only the Order will be bench filed"; and "ALL other documents must be e-filed". So the two or three documents the judge signs and swears at the hearing are handled by the court, and everything else goes through eFileTexas.gov. The memo is a scan of a signed letter, it is addressed to attorneys rather than to self-represented filers, and the County Clerk it is addressed to no longer holds the office, so confirm current practice on 806-983-4900.

The counter stops taking filings an hour before it closes. The County Clerk's page carries a dated notice: as of August 26, 2024, filings are accepted each day from 8:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. Monday through Thursday and from 8:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. on Friday, and anything submitted after those times is filed for public record on the next business day. The office itself is open until 5:00 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 3:00 p.m. on Friday. Two deadlines make this worth planning around: the three business days you have to get an original will to the clerk after e-filing the application (Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 21(f)(12)), and any statutory period you are counting to.

Two clerks, two rooms, and only one of them opens an estate. Floyd County publishes a County Clerk in Room 101 of the courthouse and a separate District Clerk in Room 207 with her own phone and fax, and the Secretary of State's county clerk roster lists Floyd as a County Clerk county rather than a combined district and county clerk county, which is how several nearby counties are listed. That is a genuine difference from many counties of this size, where one officer holds both clerkships. A probate application goes to the County Clerk in Room 101 (Texas Constitution article V, § 20); the District Clerk serves the 110th District Court and receives a probate matter only after a contested-matter transfer under Estates Code § 32.003(a)(2).

The phone number in the website footer is not the clerk's. Every page on the Floyd County site repeats a courthouse block giving 806-983-4905 and a fax of 806-983-4939, and the county's own County Judge page shows both belong to the County Judge's office in Room 105. The County Clerk's own line is 806-983-4900, which the clerk prints in her probate instruction sheet and which both the Office of Court Administration's 2025 county clerk directory and the Secretary of State's county clerk roster confirm. The clerk's fax is genuinely uncertain: the county publishes none, the Office of Court Administration lists (806) 983-4921 and the Secretary of State lists (806) 983-4901, so ask for it on the phone rather than trusting a directory.

The clerk will not look up a case for you by name, and says so. The county's own probate instruction sheet states that "The Clerk's office does not provide probate searches and will not conduct searches over the phone" and, for copy requests, that "We do not conduct searches by name for the existence of a case." The same sheet sets out the copy procedure in detail: call 806-983-4900 with the case number and case name to price the copies, then mail the request with a cashier's check or money order payable to Floyd County Clerk (personal checks need a copy of the check writer's driver's license, a phone number and a date no more than 14 days old, and no personal check over $30.00 is taken), at $1.00 per page plus $5.00 for certification, with a stamped self-addressed envelope. The clerk adds that probate and guardianship files are public record and that a local contact is welcome to come in and take the copies for you, which is a practical answer for an out-of-state family. The office also runs a credit card route through a link on its page but states that it cannot take card payments over the phone.

The county's other records portal is not a probate search. The County Clerk page links an "Online Records Search" run by Local Government Solutions, which asks for an account login. The county does not describe it as covering probate cases, and the clerk's own written position is that the office does not provide probate searches, so do not treat it as a way to find an estate file. Whether Floyd County probate documents reach the statewide re:SearchTX portal is not published by either the county or the portal; the Office of Court Administration's directory records the county's case management system as iDocket.

Know which building you are going to. Probate filings go to the Floyd County Courthouse at 105 South Main Street, Room 101. The county also uses a Floyd County Courthouse Annex at 110 S. Wall St. in Floydada, which appears in the county's own election notices as a polling place, and the county's other town, Lockney, has its own polling place at 305 N. Main. Neither is a filing counter for estates.

The district court that would take a transferred contest sits in terms across four counties. Government Code § 24.212(a) composes the 110th Judicial District of Briscoe, Dickens, Floyd and Motley counties, and § 24.212(b) provides that its terms begin in each county on the first Mondays in January and July. That is a real reason a Floyd County party may prefer the § 32.003(a)(1) route, asking for the assignment of a statutory probate court judge, over the § 32.003(a)(2) transfer to the district court, and it is a reason to raise the choice early. An appeal, by contrast, goes to Amarillo: a final order issued by a probate court is appealable to the court of appeals (Estates Code § 32.001(c)), and Floyd County is one of the forty-six counties in the Seventh Court of Appeals District (Government Code § 22.201(h)), which names Floyd in its own counties-served list and which the County Clerk's page links.

Uncontested estates are settled without a lawyer in counties like this one every year, and Floyd County gives a self-represented filer more to work from than most counties its size: a written probate instruction sheet, a published fee, and a court memo saying which documents the judge will file at the bench. Counsel still 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 farmland, a mineral interest or a wind lease 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's own probate e-file memo is written to attorneys and assumes one is conducting the proceeding, and the county publishes no application, order or oath form, so every document is drafted from scratch. 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. And the district court that would receive a transfer, the 110th, sits in terms across four counties beginning on the first Mondays in January and July (Government Code § 24.212), so the choice of route can affect how quickly a dispute is heard. County Clerk staff can explain procedure but the office states that clerks cannot give legal advice. Sunset can connect families to a vetted Texas probate attorney serving Floyd County and the surrounding South Plains 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, Floyd 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 Floydada.

Generate the probate packet. Sunset assembles the paperwork for your route, captioned for the Floyd County Court, the constitutional county court that actually has the case, and ready to file with the Floyd County Clerk in Room 101 at 105 South Main Street. That matters in a county that publishes instructions but no forms.

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 Floyd 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).