Foard County, TX Probate Information

Before you file anything in Crowell, 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 Foard County, because the county publishes no probate instructions, no probate forms and no probate fee line to correct a wrong assumption for you, and the person at the counter can explain procedure but cannot tell you which route to take. The clerk's page says as much in its own words: "Clerk and staff do NOT give legal advice. We are not attorneys."

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

The Foard County Courthouse at 101 S. Main Street in Crowell 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 County Clerk who takes the filing is the same officer who keeps the records of the 46th District Court. The court serves every part of Foard County, including Crowell and the farming and ranching country around it. How centralized the county is shows in its own election paperwork, which puts all four county voting precincts in one room in the basement of the courthouse.

Venue is straightforward for a Foard 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 Foard County, the case belongs in the Foard County Court, even if they died in a hospital in Vernon, Quanah, Wichita Falls or Lubbock. 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. Foard 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 Foard County entry. So the Foard 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 Foard County Clerk for the county court and listing no county court at law at all. The other trial court seated in the county is the 46th District Court, which under Government Code § 24.148(a) is composed of Foard, Hardeman and Wilbarger counties; the county names the Honorable Cornell Curtis as 46th District Judge, with chambers at 1700 Wilbarger Street, Room 34-A, Vernon, TX 76384, 940-552-7051 (verified July 2026).

One detail of the district statute is worth knowing before a dispute starts, because it sets the district court's own rhythm across three counties. Government Code § 24.148(b)(1) provides that the terms of the 46th District Court in Foard County begin on the 6th, 17th and 36th Mondays after the first Monday in January, with different Mondays set for Hardeman and Wilbarger counties. That is a term schedule for the district court, not a probate docket, and it does not change where an estate starts: original probate jurisdiction is in the county court under Estates Code § 32.002(a) and the application goes to the Foard County Clerk. Unlike some neighbouring districts, § 24.148 contains no provision giving the 46th District Court the jurisdiction of a county court and no separate county-court transfer provision, so the route below is the route.

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 step further out, an appeal from a Foard 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 Foard County lies in the Seventh Court of Appeals District (Government Code § 22.201(h)). That court names Foard in its own list of counties served and states that its offices are on the second floor of the Potter County Courts Building in Amarillo.

Call 940-684-1365, not the number in the directories. This is the single most practical fact on the page. Every page of the county website carries 940-684-1424 in its footer, and that number also appears on the County Judge's page and against every county commissioner; it is the courthouse general line. The County Clerk's own page publishes 940-684-1365, the Office of Court Administration's 2025 directory records 940-684-1365 as the office's court phone, and the county's own election notice prints 940-684-1365 as the number to call for voter assistance. If you are trying to reach the counter that takes an estate filing, that is the number.

One officer, two clerkships, one counter. Foard County publishes Paula Moore as County Clerk and, on a separate page, as 46th District Clerk, at the same street address, the same P. O. Box 539, the same phone and the same fax, and the Office of Court Administration's directory records the office as a combo clerk. Government Code § 51.501(a) is the provision behind it: 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 a majority of the qualified voters choose at an election to keep the offices separate (§ 51.501(b)). Section 51.502 adds a detail that shows the two roles stay legally distinct even in one office: a joint clerk uses the district court seal to authenticate acts for the district court and the county court seal for the county court. In practice that means you cannot go to the wrong window in Crowell, and your estate is still filed in the Foard County Court and taken by that officer as clerk of that court (Texas Constitution article V, § 20).

The clerk publishes a photo-identification rule for real property filings, and one probate route runs straight through it. The County Clerk's fee schedule carries a Senate Bill 16 notice which states, in the county's own words, that the clerk must require a person presenting a document for filing in the real property records to present a photo ID, must copy the ID, and must reject the filing if the person refuses to show it. Local Government Code § 191.010(b) is the provision: a county clerk shall require a person presenting a document in person for filing in the real property records to present a photo identification, and shall copy it or record information from it, without charging for the copy. Information copied from the identification is confidential (§ 191.010(c)). Two caveats: the refusal-to-file step is the county's statement of its own practice rather than a quotation from the statute, and the county's notice dates the legislation to September 1, 2025 while the statute's own amendment credit records the Senate Bill 16 changes to § 191.010 as effective December 4, 2025. This matters in an estate because where a decedent's homestead is the only real property in the estate, the affidavit used to transfer title must be recorded in the deed records (Estates Code § 205.006(a)), so bring photo identification to the counter.

Nothing about probate is published, and that is itself the local condition to plan around. Foard County has no probate page, no probate fee line, 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, and it publishes no email address for the clerk. 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 940-684-1365.

Getting into the courthouse is a published fact, and it is not the front door. The county home page states: "Enter through the west basement door of the Foard County Courthouse for ADA accessibility." The county's election notice adds that the courthouse can be entered through the west or south basement doors, that accessible parking is on the west side and that wheelchair ramps are on the west and south sides. The same notices place all four county voting precincts in a basement room the county calls the Old Extension Room, across from the Treasurer's office, moved there from the Commissioners Room by a notice the commissioners approved on August 11, 2025. Those are election facts and the county does not say where a probate hearing is held, so ask rather than assume, but the entrances are worth knowing before you arrive with a file.

Two state records for this county are out of date, in different ways. The Office of Court Administration's 2025 county clerk directory names a different person as Foard County Clerk than the county's own County Clerk and District Clerk pages do, and it leaves the county's website field blank. Separately, the older county web address for the clerk still resolves, but only by redirecting to the current page. Neither is a problem if you start from the county's own County Clerk page and call 940-684-1365; both are a problem if you copy contact details out of a directory.

The district court sits across three counties, and it enters an estate only on a contest. Government Code § 24.148(a) composes the 46th Judicial District of Foard, Hardeman and Wilbarger counties, and § 24.148(b)(1) sets the terms of the court in Foard County on the 6th, 17th and 36th Mondays after the first Monday in January. The judge's chambers are in Vernon, in Wilbarger County. Unlike some neighbouring districts, § 24.148 gives the district court no county-court jurisdiction and contains no transfer provision of its own, so the only way a Foard County estate reaches the 46th District Court is Estates Code § 32.003(a)(2), on a contested matter, 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 Foard County is one of the forty-six counties in the Seventh Court of Appeals District (Government Code § 22.201(h)). The Seventh Court of Appeals names Foard in its own counties-served list, states that its offices are 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, Texas 79105-9540, answers on (806) 342-2650, and is open Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Uncontested estates are settled without a lawyer in counties like this one every year, but Foard 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 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 probate fee, so every document is drafted from scratch and every local cost and deadline has to be established by telephone on 940-684-1365. 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 such a matter, the 46th District Court, is shared with Hardeman and Wilbarger counties and keeps chambers in Vernon (Government Code § 24.148), so a contest is not a local, same-week proposition. County Clerk staff can explain procedure but cannot give legal advice, and the clerk's own page says so. Sunset can connect families to a vetted Texas probate attorney serving Foard County and the surrounding Rolling 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, Foard 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 Crowell.

Generate the probate packet. Sunset assembles the paperwork for your route, captioned for the Foard County Court, the constitutional county court that actually has the case, and ready to file with the Foard County Clerk at 101 S. Main Street. 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 Foard 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).