Kent County, TX Probate Information

Before you file anything in Jayton, know what is actually in the estate and what it owes. Which Texas route fits, and whether a court-supervised 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. Getting the answer before your first filing matters more than usual in a county this size, because Kent County publishes no probate instructions, no forms and no hearing calendar. There is no local checklist to catch a wrong choice, and correcting one means a second filing fee.

Identify every bank and credit union account, retirement plan, brokerage holding, life insurance policy, vehicle, mineral or royalty interest and parcel of Kent County or out-of-county real property, along with every debt, before you apply. Mineral and royalty interests deserve particular attention in this part of Texas, because they are easy to miss and they are the kind of asset that later forces a family back to the courthouse. 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. Sunset's asset-discovery work, searching more than 2,300 financial institutions, exists for exactly this step, so that the application filed with the Kent County Clerk describes the estate accurately the first time.

The Kent County Courthouse at 101 N. Main Street in Jayton is the single probate filing location for the whole county. There is no branch, satellite or annex counter for estates, and no separate probate desk: the County Clerk's office in the courthouse takes the filing and the County Judge hears it. The court serves every part of the county, including Jayton, Girard, Clairemont and Polar and the ranching country between them; the county's own description notes that Jayton, which became the county seat in 1954, has most of the county's residents.

Venue is straightforward for a Kent 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 Kent County, the case belongs in the Kent County Court, even if the death occurred in a hospital outside the county, in Lubbock, Abilene, Snyder or Sweetwater. 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. Kent County has no statutory probate court and no county court at law, so the Kent County Court, the constitutional county court, has original jurisdiction of probate proceedings (Estates Code § 32.002(a)), and the elected County Judge presides. Government Code Chapter 25, the chapter that creates every statutory probate court and every county court at law in Texas, contains no Kent County provision at all, which is what makes § 32.002(a) rather than § 32.002(b) the governing subsection here. The only other trial court that sits in the county is the 39th District Court, which 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. 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.

The district court that a transfer would reach is the 39th District Court, and its geography is worth knowing before anyone files a motion. The 39th Judicial District is composed of Haskell, Kent, Stonewall and Throckmorton counties (Government Code § 24.141(a)), and the statute sets the court's terms county by county: in Kent County they begin on the ninth Monday after the first Monday in January and on the first Monday in September (§ 24.141(b)(2)). The county names the 39th District Judge as the Honorable Shane Hadaway, whose chambers are at the county courthouse at 1 Avenue D in Haskell, about fifty miles east of Jayton (verified July 2026). A district judge who sits in four counties on a statutory term calendar is not on call in Jayton, which is a practical reason to look closely at the assignment route in § 32.003(a)(1) rather than assuming a transfer is the faster path.

One officer holds both clerkships, and it changes how the courthouse feels rather than where you file. Kent County publishes the County Clerk as Craig Harrison with a footnote that he also serves as the county's 39th Judicial District Clerk, and the district clerk page carries the mirror footnote (verified July 2026). This is the arrangement Government Code § 51.501(a) provides for the smallest Texas counties, which elect a single clerk to perform the duties of the district clerk and the county clerk unless the voters vote to keep the offices separate (§ 51.501(b)); § 51.502 has the joint clerk use the county court seal for county court business and the district court seal for district court business. Two practical points follow. An estate is still opened on the county court side, with the Kent County Clerk, at (806) 237-3881: the county court is the probate court in Kent County and the district court is not. And if a contested matter is later transferred to the 39th District Court, the file changes courts without changing offices, because the same officer clerks both.

The county's fee document is unusually good and partly out of date at the same time. Kent County's probate cost code list, headed with the date it was printed, April 25, 2024, gives the fund-by-fund breakdown of the $360.00 filing fee that most Texas counties never publish, and its totals match Local Government Code § 135.102 and § 133.151 exactly. It also retains an older block of cost codes that predate the January 1, 2022 consolidation of those fees, including a separate $30.00 electronic filing fee that is no longer charged in a county court and a court records preservation line citing a Government Code provision that has been repealed. Both things are true of one document. Use the $360.00 figure, ignore the legacy bundles, and confirm with the clerk.

There is no probate page, no local form and no published counter hours, so the phone is the process. Kent County's website has a County Clerk page, a fee page and nothing else touching estates: no probate instructions, no docket day, no docket time, no e-filing notice, no filing cutoff, no hours, and no online case search or records portal of any kind. That is not a gap in this page's research; it is the county's actual publishing posture, and it means a first-time filer should call (806) 237-3881 before drafting anything. Ask what the office needs with a new application, how the County Judge sets a hearing, whether the clerk will accept a paper filing from someone without a lawyer, and whether proposed orders should be filed in advance or brought to the hearing.

A contested matter leaves the county, in practice if not in law. Kent County has no statutory probate court and no county court at law, so a contested matter goes either to an assigned statutory probate court judge or to the district court (Estates Code § 32.003(a)). The district court is the 39th, which covers Haskell, Kent, Stonewall and Throckmorton counties (Government Code § 24.141(a)) and whose terms in Kent County begin on the ninth Monday after the first Monday in January and on the first Monday in September (§ 24.141(b)(2)). The county names the 39th District Judge as the Honorable Shane Hadaway, sitting at the county courthouse at 1 Avenue D in Haskell (verified July 2026). Because a four-county district judge on a term calendar is not resident in Jayton, the assignment route in § 32.003(a)(1) is worth weighing seriously, and the timing rule matters: a motion for assignment of a statutory probate court judge filed before a transfer must be granted and blocks the transfer unless it is withdrawn (§ 32.003(b)). Whichever route is taken, the Kent County Court keeps management of the rest of the estate until the contested matter is disposed of (§ 32.003(g)).

Ask about the creditor notice before you assume a newspaper. The published notice to creditors normally runs in a newspaper of general circulation in the county where the letters were issued (Estates Code § 308.051(a)(1)), but the statute anticipates a county without one: "if there is no newspaper of general circulation in the county, the notice must be posted and the return made and filed as otherwise required by this title" (§ 308.051(c)). Kent County publishes nothing about local publication, so this page does not state which applies. It is a real question at this county size and the Kent County Clerk is the office to answer it, because getting the notice wrong exposes the personal representative and the sureties to liability for the resulting damage (§ 308.056).

Plenty of uncontested Texas estates are handled without a lawyer, but Kent County gives a self-represented filer less scaffolding than most: there is no county probate page, no local form, no instruction sheet, no published docket and no counter hours, so every document is drafted from scratch and every procedural question goes to a phone call. 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 or royalty 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 local reason to have a lawyer: 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)), a motion for assignment filed before a transfer must be granted (§ 32.003(b)), and the district court here is the 39th, which sits in four counties on a statutory term calendar with its judge based in Haskell. Those are timing decisions that are easy to miss without counsel. Kent County Clerk staff can explain procedure but cannot give legal advice. Sunset can connect families to a vetted Texas probate attorney serving Kent County and the surrounding South Plains and 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, Kent 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 Jayton.

Generate the probate packet. Sunset assembles the paperwork for your route, styled for the Kent County Court, the constitutional county court, and ready to file with the Kent County Clerk. That matters more in a county that publishes no forms and no instruction sheet 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 Kent 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).