Hall County, TX Probate Information

Before you file anything in Memphis, 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 work the same way in all 254 Texas counties; they are explained on the Texas state page. Getting the answer before your first filing matters more than usual in Hall County, because there is one small office handling both the district court and the county court records, it is working out of the county's Annex building during the courthouse restoration with its older records in offsite storage, and the counter closes at noon on Fridays. A wrong route means starting over, and the clerk cannot tell you which one to pick: the office publishes a plain notice that clerks are not attorneys and cannot advise you or prepare a document for you.

Identify every bank and credit union account, retirement plan, brokerage holding, life insurance policy, vehicle, mineral interest and parcel of Hall 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 the Panhandle, because they are easy to overlook and hard to transfer later without an authority document. Sunset's asset-discovery work, searching more than 2,300 financial institutions, exists for exactly this step, so that the application filed with the Hall County Clerk describes the estate accurately the first time.

The Hall County Courthouse at 512 W. Main Street in Memphis is the single probate filing location for the whole county. There is no branch or satellite counter for estates in another town: the District and County Clerk takes the filings, and the county publishes the office at Suite 8 of the courthouse, with the office temporarily operating out of the Hall County Courthouse Annex Building at 101 S 9th St. while the courthouse is restored. The court serves every part of the county. The county names its own communities: Memphis is the county seat, and the county's other towns and communities are Brice, Estelline, Lakeview, Lesley, Newlin, Parnell, Plaska and Turkey. Memphis sits on U.S. Highway 287 about ninety miles southeast of Amarillo, which is the practical distance to plan around if you are coming from the city.

Venue is straightforward for a Panhandle 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 Hall County, the case belongs in the Hall County Court, even if they died in a hospital in Amarillo, Childress 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. Hall County has no statutory probate court and no county court at law, so the Hall County Court, the constitutional county court, has original jurisdiction of probate proceedings (Estates Code § 32.002(a)), and the elected County Judge presides. The only other trial court seated in the county is the 100th District Court, which the county describes as "a multi-county court of general jurisdiction serving Carson, Childress, Collingsworth, Donley, and Hall Counties", sitting in the District Courtroom on the third floor of the Hall County Courthouse, with the Honorable Dale A. Rabe, Jr. presiding and chambers at 100 Avenue E, NW, Box 3, Childress, Texas 79201 (verified July 2026). That court does not open estates.

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. In Hall County that district court is the 100th. 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.

One office holds both clerkships, and that changes the usual advice. In most Texas counties you are warned to take an estate to the county clerk and not the district clerk, because they are different offices in different rooms. Hall County elects a single officer to both roles, published on the county site as the District and County Clerk, which is the arrangement Texas provides for in its smallest counties (Government Code § 51.501(a)). So there is one counter, one phone number and one fax for both, and the practical point is not where to go but what to say: you are opening a probate matter in the county court, which is the county clerk side of the office, not a district court case.

Every document goes in as its own lead document, and orders go in a separate envelope. This is the Hall County rule most likely to get an electronic filing bounced, and the clerk states it plainly: "EACH document in the same case needs to be submitted as a lead document. Orders should be submitted in a separate envelope so that they can be forwarded to the Judge." A filer used to attaching exhibits and proposed orders to an application in eFileTexas.gov should expect that to fail here. Upload each document separately, and send proposed orders in their own envelope so they reach the County Judge.

The office is in the Annex during the courthouse restoration, and older records are offsite. The clerk publishes the caveat directly: "Research availability will be limited while the Clerk's office is located in the Annex building, as our records will be located in an offsite storage building. Please use the form below to schedule an appointment for researching records." The county publishes the Hall County Courthouse Annex Building at 101 S 9th St., Memphis, while the clerk's page still prints the 512 W. Main Street, Suite 8 address. If you need to look at an old estate file, or to hand over an original will, call 806-259-2627 first and book the appointment.

The counter closes at noon on Friday. The clerk publishes hours of 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. on Friday. That matters for the three-business-day original will deadline (Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 21(f)(12)): a Wednesday electronic filing leaves you a half day on Friday to get the wet-ink will into the office.

The clerk will not help you draft, and says so in writing. The office publishes: "Please do not ask Clerks for legal advice, we are not attorneys. Clerks cannot give advice or the rendering of any service requiring the use of legal skill or knowledge, such as preparing any instrument or document." The clerk cites the unauthorized practice provision at Government Code § 81.101. Clerk staff can still explain procedure, tell you what the counter needs and take your money; they cannot tell you which probate route to use.

Nothing about the probate docket is published, so do not infer one. Hall County publishes no probate hearing day, no docket start time, no filing-to-hearing window and no remote appearance rule. The only hearing contact published anywhere on the county site sits on the 100th District Court's page and is a district court number, not a probate one. Get your setting from the clerk at 806-259-2627 or the County Judge's office at 806-259-2511.

One court, one counter, and the district court only enters on a contest. Hall County has no statutory probate court and no county court at law, so there is no question of which court to choose: the Hall County Court hears the estate (Estates Code § 32.002(a)). The 100th District Court sits in the same building but does not open estates; it reaches a Hall County probate matter only if the County Judge transfers a contested matter to it under § 32.003(a)(2), and even then the county court keeps the management of the rest of the estate (§ 32.003(g)).

Plenty of uncontested Texas estates are handled without a lawyer, but Hall County gives a self-represented filer less to work with than most: there is no county probate instruction sheet, no county form set, no published fee schedule, no published docket day, and a clerk who states in writing that the office cannot give legal advice or prepare a document for you. 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 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. The contested-matter route is a second reason: 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 without counsel. Distance is a third: attorney electronic filing removes most of the trips to Memphis, and a local attorney can hand the original will across the counter inside the three-business-day window (Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 21(f)(12)). Sunset can connect families to a vetted Texas probate attorney serving Hall County and the surrounding Panhandle.

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, Hall County real property and mineral interests, and unclaimed property, so your estate settlement starts with a clear view of what the estate holds and which route fits before anything is filed in Memphis.

Generate the probate packet. Sunset assembles the paperwork for your route, drafted to Hall County's own filing requirements, including the clerk's rule that each document goes in as its own lead document and that proposed orders travel in a separate eFileTexas.gov envelope, ready to file with the Hall County and District Clerk.

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 Hall 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).