Kimble County, TX Probate Information

Before you file anything in Junction, 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. Getting the answer before the first filing matters more than usual in Kimble County, because the county publishes no hearing calendar, no counter hours and no fixed courtroom: the County Clerk is in the annex at 105 Reid Road, the County Judge designates the hearing location, and a wrong route means starting over with a second trip.

Identify every bank and credit union account, retirement plan, brokerage holding, life insurance policy, vehicle, mineral interest and parcel of Kimble 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. Ranch and mineral interests are common in this part of the Hill Country and are easy to miss. Sunset's asset-discovery work, searching more than 2,300 financial institutions, exists for exactly this step, so that the application filed with the Kimble County Clerk describes the estate accurately the first time.

One county, one filing counter, and for now a moveable courtroom. The Kimble County Clerk takes every probate filing in the county, and during the courthouse restoration that counter is in the county annex at 105 Reid Road in Junction rather than at the Kimble County Courthouse at 501 Main Street. There is no branch or satellite office for estates. The court serves the whole county: Junction, where the county's own election notices put the City Hall Meeting Room at 102 N. 5th Street, and the outlying communities its notices name, including Roosevelt, London and Harper, together with the ranch country between them. Hearings are held at a location the County Judge designates from a published list, so confirm yours with the County Judge's office at (325) 446-2724 rather than driving to Main Street.

Venue is straightforward for a Kimble 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 Kimble County, the case belongs in the Kimble County Court, even if they died in a hospital in San Angelo, Kerrville or San Antonio. 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, and Kimble is unambiguous. Government Code Chapter 25 contains no Kimble County provision, so the county has no statutory probate court and no county court at law, and the Kimble County Court, the constitutional county court, has original jurisdiction of probate proceedings (Estates Code § 32.002(a)). The county's own list of offices names the court the Constitutional County Court, and its published County Court orders are captioned in the County Court of Kimble County, Texas. The only other trial court seated in the county is the 452nd District Court, which is composed of Edwards, Kimble, McCulloch, Mason and Menard Counties (Government Code § 24.596) and which does not open estates. An appeal from a Kimble County probate order goes to the Fourth Court of Appeals in San Antonio, which the county names on its own clerk page.

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.

In Kimble County the transfer route has an unusual practical feature. Where a contested matter goes to a district court, the clerk of the district court may perform any function a county clerk may perform for that matter (§ 32.003(i)). Because Kimble has a single joint clerk who is both County Clerk and District Clerk, that shift does not move your paperwork to a different office or a different building: it stays with the same clerk at 105 Reid Road. What does change is the judge and the courtroom, since the 452nd District Court sits across five counties and its judge's office is in Mason.

The courthouse is under restoration, so the address on every old reference is wrong. The Kimble County Courthouse at 501 Main Street is still the county's published mailing identity in its website footer, but the offices are not there. The county publishes a list titled Kimble County annex locations and courtroom locations during restoration, dated September 13, 2024, which puts the County and District Clerk, the County Treasurer, adult and juvenile probation, the county extension agent and the driver license office at 105 Reid Road, and the County Judge at 105 N 7th Street. The county home page states that all offices are now in their new locations, and the county's own election notices call 105 Reid Road the Kimble annex building. File at 105 Reid Road.

The courtroom moves too, and the county says so rather than naming one. The Constitutional County Court page states that court is to be conducted at a designated location determined by the judge, and the annex sheet lists the designated locations: the Stevenson Community Center at 440 N US Hwy 83, the First Baptist Church at 202 S 8th Street, the Church of Christ at 815 College Street, the First Methodist Church at 902 Main Street, the County Judge's Office at 105 N 7th Street and the Justice of the Peace office at 415 Main Street. Commissioners Court meets in a further set of locations. Nothing published says which one hears probate, so call the County Judge's office at (325) 446-2724 and confirm the building, not just the date. For contrast, the county states that as of January 1, 2025 the 452nd District Court sits at the Stevenson Center at 440 N US Hwy 83, which is the district court rather than the County Court.

One clerk holds both offices, which simplifies a contested case. Kimble publishes the same officeholder as County Clerk and as District Clerk at one counter, and its annex list has a single County and District Clerk line. Government Code § 51.501(a) requires that arrangement in a county with a population of less than 8,000 unless the voters vote to keep the offices separate (§ 51.501(b)). For probate it changes nothing about who takes your filing: an estate is opened with the office in its County Clerk capacity, because the county clerk is the clerk of the county court (Texas Constitution article V, § 20). It does matter if a matter becomes contested and is transferred to the 452nd District Court, because the district clerk may then perform the county clerk's functions for that matter (Estates Code § 32.003(i)) and in Kimble that is the same person at the same address.

The county publishes visiting-judge orders, but probate has its own rule. Kimble's public posting board carries a standing order appointing a retired county judge from Mason County to fill any vacancy on the Kimble bench, and a separate order, signed February 14, 2023, appointing the constitutional county judge of Menard County as visiting judge for particular matters under Government Code § 26.022, which lets a county judge appoint a visiting judge with the powers of the county judge in any pending civil or criminal matter. Probate, guardianship and mental health matters are treated separately by statute: if the county judge is absent, incapacitated, recused or disqualified to act in one of those, a visiting judge is assigned in accordance with Government Code § 25.0022(h) (§ 26.012), the same assignment machinery a party can invoke for a contested matter under Estates Code § 32.003(a)(1). Ask the clerk who is sitting before you assume the elected County Judge will hear your case.

The fee sheet doubles as the county's rule book, and two of its lines are deadlines in disguise. Kimble states that Letters Testamentary are issued to the executor or the attorney of record only, with no exceptions, so a relative or a courier cannot collect them for you. It also states that additional Letters Testamentary will not be issued if the inventory is later than 90 days without proper notice and the judge's approval, which lines up with the statutory deadline to file the inventory before the 91st day after the personal representative qualifies (Estates Code § 309.051(a)) and with the county's $25.00 late inventory fee (Local Government Code § 118.056(d)). If a title company or a bank is going to need a fresh set of letters months into the case, file the inventory on time. The sheet adds that probate and guardianship accounts must be settled by final hearing, so ask the clerk what is outstanding on your case before the hearing.

Case lookup is a three-portal question here, and none of the three is a county-run probate search. The clerk links iDocket.com, which the county labels the Kimble County site for public records and which is a subscription service; the Texas UCMS Public Access Portal, a Tyler Technologies site for counties in the Office of Court Administration's Uniform Case Management System program, which the Office of Court Administration describes as aimed at counties with a population of 20,000 or less and delivered through three contracted vendors including iDocket and Tyler Technologies; and re:SearchTX. Nothing published states which Kimble case types or which years are visible to a member of the public in any of them, so for a definitive answer on a specific estate ask the County Clerk at (325) 446-3353.

Small county, no published calendar, so ask rather than assume. Kimble publishes no probate docket day, no docket start time, no counter hours, no lunch closure, no filing cutoff and no remote appearance rule for the County Court, and this page does not invent any of them. It does publish a courtroom rules sheet, which is worth reading before a hearing: security screening and no weapons of any kind, hats and caps off, no shorts, tube tops, flip flops or clothing with vulgar language, no mobile phone or electronic device use without prior court approval, no recording or photography of any kind, no food without approval and drinks in covered containers.

Plenty of uncontested Kimble County estates are handled without a lawyer, and nothing the county publishes requires counsel for a decedent's estate. 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, a ranch 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. First, Kimble County publishes no probate forms and no instruction sheet, so every document is drafted from scratch. Second, the practical details are unpublished: no counter hours, no docket day and a courtroom location the County Judge designates case by case, which is easier to navigate with someone who files here regularly, and the county's own fee sheet limits who may collect Letters Testamentary to the executor or the attorney of record. Third, 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 without counsel. County Clerk staff can explain procedure but cannot give legal advice. Sunset can connect families to a vetted Texas probate attorney serving Kimble County and the surrounding Hill Country.

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, Kimble County real property, mineral interests and unclaimed property, so you know what the estate holds and which estate settlement route fits before anything is filed in Junction.

Generate the probate packet. Sunset assembles the paperwork for your route, drafted for a county that publishes no forms of its own and captioned in the County Court of Kimble County, Texas, ready to e-file and to file with the Kimble County Clerk at 105 Reid Road.

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 Kimble 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).