Franklin County, TX Probate Information

Before you file anything in Mount Vernon, 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 pays off here in a specific way, because Franklin County's published fee schedule prices the routes differently: a new probate, muniment of title or administration is billed at one total, and a small estate application with no citation at another, so knowing which one you are filing tells you what to bring.

Identify every bank and credit union account, retirement plan, brokerage holding, life insurance policy, vehicle, mineral interest and parcel of Franklin 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 where lake property, farmland and mineral interests often sit alongside modest 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 Franklin County Clerk describes the estate accurately the first time.

The Franklin County Courthouse at 200 North Kaufman Street in Mount Vernon is the single probate filing location for the whole county. There is no branch or satellite counter for estates. The court serves every part of Franklin County, from Mount Vernon, the county seat, to the surrounding farm country and the Lake Cypress Springs area, for which the county's own site links information. One warning specific to this county: Franklin County elects two clerks and they are in two different buildings. The County Clerk, who takes probate, is in the courthouse at 200 North Kaufman Street. The District Clerk, who serves the district courts, is at the Franklin County Courthouse Annex West, 204 Texas Highway 37, with a separate mailing box. An estate application delivered to the annex is in the wrong office.

Venue is straightforward for a Franklin 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 Franklin County, the case belongs in the Franklin County Court, even if they died in a hospital in Mount Pleasant, Sulphur Springs, Tyler or Dallas. 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. Franklin 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 Franklin County entry. So the Franklin 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 Franklin County Clerk for the county court and listing no county court at law at all.

Franklin County is served by two district courts rather than one, and that is unusual enough to be worth knowing before a dispute starts. Under Government Code § 24.108(a) the 8th Judicial District is composed of Delta, Franklin, Hopkins and Rains counties, and under § 24.164(a) the 62nd Judicial District is composed of Delta, Franklin, Hopkins and Lamar counties. Section 24.164(e) provides that § 24.108, which governs the 8th District Court, "contains provisions applicable to both that court and the 62nd District Court in Delta, Franklin, and Hopkins counties", and § 24.108(b) provides that "In any county in the district in which there are two or more district courts, those district courts have concurrent jurisdiction in that county". Section 24.108(c) lets the judges transfer a case from one docket to the other and singles the county out by name: "The judges in Delta and Franklin counties may transfer a case by an order entered on the minutes of the transferring court." The terms of both courts in each county begin on the first Mondays in January and July (§ 24.108(d); § 24.164(c)). The county publishes the 8th District Court under Judge Eddie Northcutt on 903-438-4022 and the 62nd District Court on 903-737-2434 (verified July 2026). 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 Franklin County Clerk.

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. In Franklin County the transfer destination is a district bench with two courts in it, so ask early which of the two is taking the matter.

One step further out, an appeal from a Franklin 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 Franklin County lies in the Sixth Court of Appeals District (Government Code § 22.201(g)). That court sits in Texarkana at 100 N. State Line Avenue, Suite 20, answers on (903) 798-3046, and names Franklin in its own list of the nineteen counties it serves.

Two clerks, two buildings, and only one of them takes an estate. This is the local fact most likely to cost a Franklin County filer a wasted trip. The county elects a County Clerk, who is the clerk of the county court (Texas Constitution article V, § 20) and who takes probate, at the Franklin County Courthouse, 200 North Kaufman Street in Mount Vernon. It separately elects a District Clerk, who serves the 8th and 62nd District Courts, at the Franklin County Courthouse Annex West, 204 Texas Highway 37, with its own mailing box. Franklin County is not one of the smallest Texas counties where a single officer holds both roles: Government Code § 51.501(a) provides for that joint clerkship only in a county with a population of less than 8,000, and § 51.501(b) lets voters keep the offices separate, but either way Franklin publishes two officers at two addresses. An estate application belongs at 200 North Kaufman Street.

The counter closes early, and it closes for lunch. From Monday, August 3, 2026 the County Clerk publishes hours of 7:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, closed from 12:30 p.m. to 1:00 p.m., and 8:00 a.m. to noon on Friday, so the office is shut on Friday afternoons. On top of that the clerk publishes cutoffs earlier than closing time: the deadline to record documents is 4:00 p.m. Monday through Thursday and noon on Friday. That matters for one deadline in particular. After an application to probate a document as an original will is e-filed, the original will must reach the clerk within three business days (Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 21(f)(12)), and a four-and-a-half-day counter eats into three business days faster than a reader expects. Call 903-537-8357 before you drive to Mount Vernon.

The fee schedule is unusually good, and it tells you what the statute does not. Most Texas counties this size publish no probate fee document at all. Franklin publishes five pages with a printed effective date of January 1, 2024 and a probate section headed as updated January 1, 2022 under S.B. 41, and it prices the whole life of an estate: opening at $395.00, heirship, letters at $2.00, a will deposited for safekeeping at $5.00, small estate at $362.00, adverse action at $120.00, the annual and final accounts, applications to sell real or personal property, guardianship reports, claims, copies and certification. Read it in one sitting before you file and you will know the real cost of the estate, not just the opening fee. The one line to read carefully is the inventory: the county charges $25.00 plus a $2.00 judge's signature only when the inventory is filed after the 90th day after qualification (Local Government Code § 118.056(d)), so filing on time costs nothing.

The county publishes its court dockets, but not for probate. The County Clerk maintains a County Court Dockets page going back to 2018, with roughly two settings a month, cancellations marked, and 2026 dates listed through December 22, 2026. The two 2026 dockets read for this page, June 23 and July 14, are both headed as county court settings at 9:00 a.m. before the County Judge, and both contain only criminal matters. So the page is genuinely useful as evidence of when the county court sits, and it is not a probate calendar. No probate docket day, hearing time or filing-to-hearing interval is published by Franklin County, and none is asserted here. The county also posts monthly County Court appointment and fees reports, which is where a court-appointed attorney's fee in a guardianship or an heirship would be disclosed; the report read for this page, for March 2026, is a nil return.

Records are online, but they are land records. Franklin County brought a Records Public Access site live on November 3, 2025, and the clerk describes it in the county's own words as carrying deed records indexed and imaged from 1843 forward and contract, lien, oil and gas lease records from 1910 forward, with free searching and viewing and payment only when you print. The same launch added online vital records requests, and the clerk runs a free property fraud notification service for county property owners. None of that is a probate case search. For an estate, records are requested from the County Clerk, and anything e-filed may also sit in the statewide re:SearchTX portal, which charges for documents and describes what it serves as an unofficial copy. Two related recording points matter to estates: the clerk accepts eRecording through commercial submitters, and since September 1, 2025 anyone presenting a document for recording in person must show valid identification under Local Government Code § 191.010(b).

A contested matter here has a two-court district waiting for it. Under Estates Code § 32.003(a) the County Judge may, and on a party's motion shall, either request the assignment of a statutory probate court judge (Government Code § 25.0022) or transfer the contested matter to the district court. In Franklin County the district bench is two courts, not one: the 8th Judicial District is composed of Delta, Franklin, Hopkins and Rains counties (Government Code § 24.108(a)) and the 62nd Judicial District of Delta, Franklin, Hopkins and Lamar counties (§ 24.164(a)), and § 24.164(e) applies the 8th District's provisions to both courts in Franklin County. That means the two district courts have concurrent jurisdiction in the county (§ 24.108(b)) and their judges may transfer a case between dockets, with a provision naming the county: "The judges in Delta and Franklin counties may transfer a case by an order entered on the minutes of the transferring court" (§ 24.108(c)). The terms of both courts in each county begin on the first Mondays in January and July (§ 24.108(d); § 24.164(c)). None of that gives a district court original probate jurisdiction, which sits in the county court (Estates Code § 32.002(a)), and even on a transfer the county court keeps the management of the rest of the estate (§ 32.003(g)).

An appeal goes to Texarkana, 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 Franklin County is one of the nineteen counties in the Sixth Court of Appeals District (Government Code § 22.201(g)). That court names Franklin in its own counties-served list and sits at 100 N. State Line Avenue, Suite 20, Texarkana, TX 75501, on (903) 798-3046. Appellate deadlines are short, so raise an appeal with a lawyer promptly rather than after the fact.

Uncontested estates are settled without a lawyer in counties like this one every year, and Franklin County makes the money side easier than most by publishing what everything costs. 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 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 here. The county publishes no probate forms, no application template and no probate instructions, so every document in a decedent's estate 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 bench that would receive such a transfer is two courts, the 8th and the 62nd, with concurrent jurisdiction in the county and a statutory power to move a case between their dockets (Government Code §§ 24.108, 24.164), so knowing who is handling what is worth a lawyer's attention. County Clerk staff can explain procedure but cannot give legal advice. Sunset can connect families to a vetted Texas probate attorney serving Franklin County and the surrounding northeast 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, Franklin County real property and mineral interests, and unclaimed property, so you know what the estate holds and which route fits before anything is filed in Mount Vernon.

Generate the probate packet. Sunset assembles the paperwork for your estate settlement route, captioned for the Franklin County Court, the constitutional county court that actually has the case, and ready to file with the Franklin County Clerk at 200 North Kaufman Street. That matters in a county that publishes a detailed fee schedule 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 Franklin 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).