Gregg County, TX Probate Information

Before you file anything in Longview, work out what the estate holds and what it owes. Which Texas route fits, and whether a court filing 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 created by state statute and are identical in all 254 Texas counties, so they are covered on the Texas state page rather than here. Getting the answer first matters more than usual in Gregg County, because the County Clerk's probate fee schedule prices each route separately and you pay when you file: an original action to obtain letters is $455.00 all in, a small estates affidavit is $387.00, and a determination of heirship with citation to unknown heirs runs to $505.00. Filing the wrong one means paying twice.

Identify every bank and credit union account, retirement plan, brokerage holding, life insurance policy, vehicle and parcel of Gregg 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 court. East Texas estates frequently include mineral interests and royalty payments that are easy to miss and that a title company or a purchaser will later insist on seeing accounted for. Sunset's asset discovery work, searching more than 2,300 financial institutions, exists for exactly this step, so that the application filed with the Gregg County Clerk describes the estate accurately the first time.

The Gregg County Courthouse at 101 E. Methvin in Longview is the single probate filing location for the whole county. There is no branch or annex counter for estates: the County Clerk takes filings in Suite 200, County Court at Law No. 1 sits in Suite 416, County Court at Law No. 2 in Suite 303 and the County Judge in Suite 300. The court serves every part of the county, including Longview, Kilgore and Gladewater and the rural areas between them. Because attorneys file electronically through eFileTexas.gov, most of the paperwork in an uncontested estate never requires a trip to the counter; the two things that still tie you to Longview are the original will, which has to be physically delivered, and the hearing.

Venue is straightforward for an East Texas 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 Gregg County, the case belongs here, even if they died in a hospital in Tyler, Shreveport or Dallas. For a decedent with no Texas domicile or fixed place of 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 county of this size, and Gregg is a genuinely two-track county. It has no statutory probate court. It does have two statutory county courts, the County Court at Law No. 1 of Gregg County and the County Court at Law No. 2 of Gregg County (Government Code § 25.0941(b) and (c)), each of which has, concurrent with the county court, the probate jurisdiction provided by general law for county courts (Government Code § 25.0003(d)). So the rule that applies is Estates Code § 32.002(b): in a county with no statutory probate court but with a county court at law exercising original probate jurisdiction, the county court at law and the county court have concurrent original jurisdiction of probate proceedings. Neither court displaces the other, and a county court at law in Gregg County is not a statutory probate court: the Estates Code says the term does not include a county court at law exercising probate jurisdiction unless it is designated a statutory probate court under Government Code chapter 25 (§ 22.007(c)), and Gregg has no such designation. What the county's own records show is where the estates actually land: in the County Clerk's monthly chapter 36 appointments and fees reports for January through June 2026, every decedent's estate and guardianship appointment was made in County Court at Law No. 2, while the constitutional County Court's entries were mental health matters.

If a matter in the proceeding becomes contested, Gregg County follows the county-court-at-law route, not the small-county route. Under Estates Code § 32.004(a), in a county in which there is no statutory probate court but in which there is a 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, transfer the contested matter to the county court at law, and under § 32.004(b) the judge of the county court may instead transfer the entire proceeding to the county court at law. There is no assignment of an outside statutory probate court judge and no transfer to a district court in a county built this way: the mechanism that sends contested matters to a district court, Estates Code § 32.003, applies only where the county has neither a statutory probate court nor a county court at law exercising original probate jurisdiction, which is not Gregg County. The practical consequence is that a Gregg County contest stays inside the courthouse and in front of a judge who is a lawyer.

Two county courts at law, and the estates land in one of them. Gregg County has the County Court at Law No. 1 of Gregg County, in Suite 416 with Judge Angie Konczak, and the County Court at Law No. 2 of Gregg County, in Suite 303 with Judge Vincent Dulweber (Government Code § 25.0941(b) and (c); judges verified July 2026 from the county's own pages). Both share original probate jurisdiction with the constitutional Gregg County Court under Estates Code § 32.002(b), and the county publishes no docket-assignment rule. What it does publish is data: in the County Clerk's monthly chapter 36 appointments and fees reports for January through June 2026, every decedent's estate and every guardianship appointment was made in County Court at Law No. 2, and the constitutional County Court's entries were all mental health matters. Those reports only capture cases in which the court appointed someone, so confirm your own setting rather than assuming it, but the pattern is consistent across six consecutive months.

A contest goes across the hall, not to a district court. This is the single most useful legal fact about probate in a county built like Gregg. Where a county has a county court at law exercising original probate jurisdiction, a contested matter is transferred to the county court at law on the county judge's own motion or, on any party's motion, as of right, and the county judge may transfer the entire proceeding there (Estates Code § 32.004). The assignment-of-a-statutory-probate-judge and transfer-to-district-court mechanism in § 32.003 does not apply in Gregg County, because that section is written for counties with neither a statutory probate court nor a county court at law. Anyone quoting you the § 32.003 route for a Gregg County estate is quoting the wrong statute.

The county's own local rule tells you where probate goes. Gregg publishes local civil rules whose Rule 1 reads that all petitions in civil cases shall be filed in the office of the District Clerk "except for matters involving: 1. Probate and Guardianships", along with misdemeanor bond forfeitures and two driver license petitions. That is an unusually explicit local statement of the statewide position, and it is worth knowing because Gregg's county courts at law also carry district-court jurisdiction under Government Code § 25.0942(a), which leads people to assume the district courts' clerk handles their filings. For an estate it does not: the county clerk serves as clerk of a county court at law in all other cases (§ 25.0942(h)), and probate is in that bucket.

There is a dedicated probate mailbox, and it is better than the general line. The County Clerk publishes a Department Email List that routes probate, criminal, recording, vitals and marriage to separate addresses; the probate address is [email protected]. Most Texas counties of this size publish a single clerk mailbox or an individual staff member's address, so use the departmental one. The counter phone is 903-236-8430, the same number the county prints at the foot of its probate fee schedule.

The counter closes for lunch, and the county says so twice. Gregg County Clerk hours are Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., with the office closed from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. The county repeats the closure in the notice banner on its homepage, alongside the same closure for the District Clerk. If you are driving in with an original will, do not arrive at noon.

The law library is in the same building as the filing counter. The Gregg County Law Library is at 101 E. Methvin, Suite 202, Longview, in the same courthouse as the County Clerk in Suite 200, open 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, 903-236-8460. For a self-represented filer drafting an application with no county form to work from, that proximity is worth planning a single trip around: file at the counter, then use the library without leaving the building. Library staff can point you to publications but cannot give legal advice.

No probate case search, and the clerk's portal will mislead you if you let it. The County Clerk Web Access site the clerk links looks like a records search and is one, but its tabs are Birth, Death, Marriage, Real Estate and Uniform Commercial Code. It indexes deeds and vital records, not estates. Gregg County publishes no online probate case search of its own, so a case lookup means the statewide re:SearchTX portal, with its registration requirement, per-document charges and unofficial-copy caveat, or a call to the County Clerk.

Plenty of uncontested Gregg County estates are settled without a lawyer, and the County Clerk's published fee schedule is written as though a filer might be doing it alone. 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 through a heirship proceeding, 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. Gregg publishes no probate forms at all, so every document is drafted from scratch. Gregg publishes no probate docket calendar and no self-service scheduling, so getting a setting means knowing who to ask. And the contested route matters: in a county with a county court at law exercising original probate jurisdiction, a contested matter is transferred to the county court at law on the county judge's own motion or, on any party's motion, as of right, and the entire proceeding can go with it (Estates Code § 32.004). County Clerk staff can explain procedure but cannot give legal advice. Sunset can connect families to a vetted Texas probate attorney serving Gregg County and the surrounding East 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, Gregg 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 Longview.

Generate the probate packet. Sunset assembles the paperwork for your route, drafted for a county that publishes no probate forms of its own, ready to file with the Gregg County Clerk in Suite 200 or through eFileTexas.gov.

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 Gregg 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).