Limestone County, TX Probate Information

Before you file anything in Groesbeck, 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 the same in all 254 Texas counties; they are explained on the Texas state page. Getting the answer before your first filing matters here because Limestone County prices probate route by route: its County Clerk's fee schedule has separate blocks for Letters Testamentary and administration, for a muniment of title (Estates Code chapter 257), for a determination of heirship and for a small estate, and each carries its own citation and service add-ons. Choosing the wrong one means paying twice.

Identify every bank and credit union account, retirement plan, brokerage holding, life insurance policy, vehicle and parcel of Limestone 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. Sunset's asset-discovery work, searching more than 2,300 financial institutions, exists for exactly this step, so that the application filed with the Limestone County Clerk describes the estate accurately the first time.

The Limestone County Courthouse at 200 W State Street in Groesbeck is the single probate filing location for the whole county. The County Clerk takes estate filings in Suite 102 and the County Judge sits in Suite 101 of the same building. There is no branch or annex counter for estates. The court serves every part of the county, including Groesbeck, Mexia, Coolidge, Tehuacana, Kosse and Thornton and the rural areas between them. This is worth spelling out because Mexia is the county's better-known commercial town and has a county office of its own: the Justice of the Peace for Precinct 4 sits at 205 S. McKinney Street in Mexia, and Precinct 2's justice court is in Coolidge. Neither hears probate. An estate opened anywhere in Limestone County is filed with the County Clerk in Groesbeck and heard by the Limestone County Court.

Venue is straightforward for a Limestone 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 Limestone County, the case belongs in the Limestone County Court, even if they died in a hospital in Waco, Temple or Dallas. 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. Limestone County has no statutory probate court and no county court at law, so the Limestone 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, which is where every statutory county court and statutory probate court in Texas is created, contains no Limestone entry. The county's own government pages corroborate it: they list the County Judge, the Commissioners Court, four Justices of the Peace and the two district courts, and no county court at law.

Limestone is served by two district courts, which matters only if something is contested. Government Code § 24.179(a) provides that "The 77th Judicial District is composed of Freestone and Limestone counties", and § 24.179(b) that "The 77th District Court has concurrent jurisdiction with the 87th District Court in Freestone and Limestone counties". Government Code § 24.189(a) provides that "The 87th Judicial District is composed of Anderson, Freestone, Leon, and Limestone counties". Both courts sit at the Groesbeck courthouse and the county publishes a page for each. Neither opens an estate. For appeals, Limestone sits in the Tenth Court of Appeals District (Government Code § 22.201(k)), which the county's own pages also state.

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 Limestone that district court is the 77th or the 87th, which have concurrent jurisdiction here. 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 clerk will retrieve a record but will not search for you, and the office says so in writing. This is the Limestone practice most likely to surprise someone trying to find an old estate file. The County Clerk publishes a signed notice stating that "The Limestone County Clerk and Staff will not conduct property or judicial record searches that are not authorized by statute", followed by "We will retrieve records from provided specific information. We will provide copies as requested and payment received." The notice grounds the position in a 1959 Texas Attorney General opinion it quotes as saying that "The County Clerk has no duty to search the records under his control and guarantee the correctness thereof." The practical consequence is that you should walk in with a cause number, a name and a date, not a request to look something up. The same notice says the office offers public search computers during its business hours of 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday.

The county's published "County Court Dockets" are criminal, and reading them as probate settings is the easiest mistake to make here. Limestone publishes dated County Court dockets going back to 2016, roughly twice a month, which looks at first like a probate calendar. It is not: the files are arraignment, status and motion dockets, and the one read for this page is headed "Arraignments 08/06/2026 9:00 AM ... Limestone County, State of Texas ... County Court Docket" over a list of misdemeanor cases. What those dockets do usefully confirm is who presides: they are issued for the Honorable Judge Richard Duncan, the County Judge who hears Limestone probate matters, and they carry the county's own warning that the "COUNTY COURT DOCKET IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE". No probate docket day, hearing time or filing-to-hearing window is published anywhere on the county site, so ask the County Clerk rather than assuming one.

Three suites, one building, and the wrong counter costs you a day. The County Clerk, who takes estate filings, is in Suite 102 at 200 W State Street. The County Judge, who hears them, is in Suite 101. The District Clerk, who serves the 77th and 87th District Courts and does not open estates, is in Suite 206. Justice of the Peace Precinct 3 is in Suite 201 and hears no probate at all. Mail for the estate goes to the County Clerk, P. O. Box 350, Groesbeck, TX 76642.

The county's fee schedule frames the inventory fee correctly, and that is worth copying. Many fee lists print a $25.00 inventory filing fee as though it were a routine cost of every estate. Limestone's does not: it heads the block "INVENTORY, APPRAISEMENT & LIST OF CLAIMS (After 90th day of qualification)", which tracks Local Government Code § 118.056(d), where the fee applies only to an instrument filed after the 90th day after the personal representative qualified or after any extended deadline the court sets. File the inventory, or an affidavit in lieu of it, within the statutory period and the clerk charges nothing for it. The same schedule applies the same logic to a document of more than 25 pages, which is priced at $25.00 only after the order approving the inventory and appraisement or the 120th day after the case was filed.

Limestone's online records are real but none of them is probate. The clerk publishes an Official Public Records search covering 1861 to the present, at $1.00 per page to print, and it indexes land and other recorded instruments, not estates. It also appears on iDocket.com, and the clerk's notice is precise about what that covers: "Criminal Records: 1987 to present". For probate, guardianship and civil cases the clerk's page instead links the statewide re:SearchTX portal, which is registered access to an unofficial copy with per-document charges, and whose coverage is set county by county. So there is no Limestone County probate case search: use re:SearchTX if the filing was electronic, or give the clerk the specifics and ask for the record.

One court, one counter, and the district courts only enter on a contest. Limestone County has no statutory probate court and no county court at law, so there is no question of which court to choose: the Limestone County Court hears the estate (Estates Code § 32.002(a)) and the County Clerk in Suite 102 takes the filing. The 77th and 87th District Courts sit in the same courthouse with concurrent jurisdiction in Limestone County (Government Code §§ 24.179 and 24.189) but do not open estates; a district court reaches a Limestone 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)).

The county documents its own appointments, which is a useful sign of how the court works. Limestone publishes monthly County Court appointment and fee reports, month by month back to 2016, showing each attorney appointment the County Judge made, the position appointed to, the date the fee was approved, the amount and whether the estate or the county paid it. The recent reports are almost entirely attorney ad litem appointments in guardianships, with approved fees in the low hundreds of dollars. If a guardianship is running alongside your estate, that is a realistic picture of what the court approves.

Plenty of uncontested Limestone County estates are handled without a lawyer, and the County Clerk's counter will tell you what it needs procedurally. 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 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, Limestone County publishes no probate forms and no local probate instructions at all, so every document is drafted from scratch and there is no county sheet telling you how the judge wants proposed orders handled. Second, the clerk states in writing that it will not search its records for you, which makes an unrepresented filer's homework harder. 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 Limestone County and the surrounding central 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, Limestone County real property and unclaimed property, so you know what the estate holds and which estate settlement route fits before anything is filed in Groesbeck.

Generate the probate packet. Sunset assembles the paperwork for your route, captioned for the Limestone County Court rather than a probate court the county does not have, and ready to file with the Limestone County Clerk in Suite 102 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 Limestone 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).