Lavaca County, TX Probate Information

Before you file anything in Hallettsville, 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 the first filing matters here because Lavaca County publishes no probate forms and no probate instruction sheet, so every document is drafted from scratch, and because the county's fee schedule prices the pieces separately: a wrong route can mean paying a second filing fee, a second citation and a second sheriff's posting.

Identify every bank and credit union account, retirement plan, brokerage holding, life insurance policy, vehicle, mineral interest and parcel of Lavaca 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 easy to miss in a farming and ranching county and are exactly the kind of asset that surfaces years later. Sunset's asset-discovery work, searching more than 2,300 financial institutions, exists for this step, so that the application filed with the Lavaca County Clerk describes the estate accurately the first time.

Hallettsville is the only place to file a Lavaca County estate, and the county splits the work across two buildings. The Lavaca County Clerk takes probate filings at the Lavaca County Courthouse Annex, 412 N. Texana, and the County Judge and the court coordinator who handles probate and guardianship settings are at the Lavaca County Courthouse, 109 North LaGrange. There is no branch or satellite counter for estates anywhere else in the county. The court serves every part of Lavaca County, including Hallettsville, Shiner, Moulton, Yoakum and the farming and ranching country between them.

Venue is straightforward for a Lavaca 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 Lavaca County, the case belongs in the Lavaca County Court, even if they died in a hospital in Victoria, San Antonio or Houston. 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. Lavaca County has no statutory probate court and no county court at law, so the Lavaca 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 the state, has no Lavaca County provision, which is the statutory confirmation. The other trial courts seated in the county are the 25th and 2nd 25th District Courts and the Justice of the Peace courts, and none of them opens an estate.

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.

Lavaca County's district-court arrangement is unusual, and it is worth knowing before a fight starts, because it decides where a transferred matter is actually managed from. Two district courts are composed of the same four counties. Government Code § 24.126(a) provides that "The 25th Judicial District is composed of Colorado, Gonzales, Guadalupe, and Lavaca counties", and § 24.127(a) provides that "The Second 25th Judicial District is composed of Colorado, Gonzales, Guadalupe, and Lavaca counties" as well. That is why the county's website carries two separate district court pages, one for each. Both sit at the Lavaca County Courthouse, 109 North LaGrange, when they are in Lavaca County, and both are reached through the District Clerk at (361) 798-2351, but both are administered from Seguin in Guadalupe County: the county's own pages give each court's coordinator at 211 West Court Street in Seguin and direct readers to the Guadalupe County website for judges' calendars, standing orders, local rules and court settings. The district courts also publish an in-person dockets notice issued under the Supreme Court of Texas Fifty-Fifth Emergency Order of August 30, 2022, so a contested matter transferred to a district court is likely to be set in person.

Two buildings, and you need both. This is the Lavaca practicality that catches people out. The Lavaca County Clerk, the office that takes the filing, is in the Lavaca County Courthouse Annex at 412 N. Texana. The County Judge who hears the case, and the court coordinator who sets it, are in the Lavaca County Courthouse at 109 North LaGrange, along with the District Clerk. The county's own Contact page separates the offices exactly that way. If you are driving to Hallettsville to file and to ask about a setting in the same trip, plan on two stops.

The counter opens at 7:45 a.m., and closes for lunch. The County Clerk publishes hours of Monday through Friday, 7:45 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., closed from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. The 7:45 a.m. opening is earlier than most Texas county clerks and is genuinely useful if you are coming in from out of county. Note the County Judge's office keeps different hours, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. with the same noon closure, so a single visit has to be timed around both.

The fee schedule is itemized and dated, which is rare at this county size, and it changes how you budget. Most small Texas counties publish either nothing or a single number. Lavaca publishes three pages of line items, each with its statutory cite, revised January 1, 2026. Two consequences. First, the County Judge collects $2.00 for any order signed (Local Government Code § 118.101), and because a probate generates several orders, that line recurs. Second, the sheriff's charge depends on how notice goes out: $60.00 for each posted citation, $125.00 for personal service, service by publication or service by mail. An heirship matter needing citation by publication is priced differently from a straightforward will admitted on a posted citation.

File the inventory on time and it costs nothing at the counter. Lavaca's schedule prints its inventory fee under the heading "INVENTORY (AFTER 90TH DAY AFTER QUALIFICATION DATE)", which is the county stating the statutory limit plainly: the $25.00 clerk fee applies only if the inventory is filed after the 90th day after the personal representative qualified, or after an extended deadline the court has granted (Local Government Code § 118.056(d)). The statutory deadline itself is that the inventory must be filed before the 91st day after the representative qualifies unless the court grants longer (Estates Code § 309.051(a)). Meet it and there is no clerk fee to pay.

There is no online case lookup at all, so keep your cause number. Lavaca County publishes no probate case search, and unlike most Texas counties it publishes no online real property records search either; the two e-recording vendors on the clerk's page are channels for submitting documents, not for searching. The clerk's own schedule prices a search "when a cause number is not provided" at $5.00, which tells you how lookups happen here. Write the cause number down at the hearing.

Two district courts cover the county, and both are run from another county. Government Code § 24.126(a) puts Colorado, Gonzales, Guadalupe and Lavaca counties in the 25th Judicial District, and § 24.127(a) puts the same four counties in the Second 25th Judicial District, so Lavaca has two district courts rather than one. Neither opens an estate. They matter only on a contest, because a district court is one of the two destinations under Estates Code § 32.003(a), and the practical point is that both courts' coordinators sit at 211 West Court Street in Seguin, in Guadalupe County, and the county's own pages send readers to the Guadalupe County website for calendars, standing orders, local rules and settings. A contested matter transferred out of the Lavaca County Court is therefore administered from Seguin, even though it is heard in Hallettsville.

The clerk publishes monthly appointment and fees reports, and they are worth a look if you are worried about ad litem cost. The Lavaca County Clerk posts a monthly "Fees Approved" report going back to 2016, listing court appointments made in probate and guardianship matters, the position appointed to, and the amount of fees approved. It is a rare window into what a court-appointed attorney ad litem has actually cost in this county.

Plenty of uncontested Lavaca County estates are settled without a lawyer, and the County Clerk will tell you what the counter needs. 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 has to be sold or divided, when there are mineral or royalty interests to trace, when the estate is insolvent or a creditor is pressing, 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, Lavaca County publishes no probate forms and no probate instruction sheet, so every document is drafted from scratch. Second, the county publishes no probate docket day, no docket time and no list of what to bring, so the practice knowledge is not written down anywhere and has to come from the court coordinator or from someone who files here. 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 a 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. Both of the district courts that cover Lavaca County are administered from Seguin in Guadalupe County, which adds a practical layer. County Clerk staff and the County Judge's staff can explain procedure, and the county says plainly that they cannot give legal advice or answer legal questions. Sunset can connect families to a vetted Texas probate attorney serving Lavaca County and the surrounding area.

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, Lavaca 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 Hallettsville.

Generate the probate packet. Sunset assembles the paperwork for your route, drafted from scratch because Lavaca County publishes no probate forms, captioned in the Lavaca County Court and ready to file with the Lavaca County Clerk at the Courthouse Annex 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 Lavaca 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).