Live Oak County, TX Probate Information

Before you file anything in George West, 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 here for two concrete local reasons. The Live Oak County Clerk publishes a single all-in price of $460.00 for every probate application it lists, so filing the wrong application costs the same as filing the right one. And because the county requires probate matters to be e-filed, a rejected or misdirected submission means going back through the electronic filing system rather than fixing it at the counter.

Identify every bank and credit union account, retirement plan, brokerage holding, life insurance policy, vehicle and parcel of Live Oak 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 either Live Oak County court. Mineral and royalty interests deserve a specific look in this part of South Texas, because they are easy to overlook and they are exactly the kind of asset that later forces a second trip to the courthouse. Sunset's asset-discovery work, searching more than 2,300 financial institutions, exists for this step, so that the application filed with the Live Oak County Clerk describes the estate accurately the first time.

Room 105 of the Live Oak County Courthouse at 301 Houston Street in George West is the single probate filing location for the whole county. There is no branch or annex counter for estates. The courts serve every part of the county, including George West, Three Rivers, Lagarto and the Simmons community, and the ranch country between them.

Venue is straightforward for a Live Oak 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 Live Oak County, the case belongs in Live Oak County even if they died in a hospital in Corpus Christi, Beeville 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 a generic page gets wrong here, because Live Oak County has two courts with probate jurisdiction and neither of them is a statutory probate court. The Live Oak County Court is the constitutional county court, presided over by the elected County Judge. The 2nd Multicounty Court at Law is a statutory county court composed of three counties, created effective September 1, 2023: Government Code § 25.2703 reads, "Bee, Live Oak, and McMullen Counties have a multicounty statutory county court composed of those counties, the 2nd Multicounty Court at Law", and § 25.2704(b) adds that "Bee County is the administrative county for the 2nd Multicounty Court at Law". Because there is no statutory probate court in the county but there is a county court at law exercising original probate jurisdiction, the two courts have concurrent original jurisdiction of probate proceedings (Estates Code § 32.002(b)), and the county court at law's probate jurisdiction comes from general law rather than a special act: a statutory county court "has, concurrent with the county court, the probate jurisdiction provided by general law for county courts" (Government Code § 25.0003(d)). Live Oak County has no county court at law of its own beyond the shared one, and neither the county nor the state's local-rules repository publishes any allocation of estates between the two courts, so ask the County Clerk which court your case is set in rather than assuming.

Sharing a judge with Bee and McMullen Counties does not move the filing counter out of George West, and that is the point most often gotten wrong about these three counties. The clerk of the shared court in a probate matter is the county clerk of the county where the case belongs, not the district clerk and not the clerk of the administrative county. Government Code § 25.2604(a), the general provision for every multicounty statutory county court, says it in one line: "The county clerk of a particular county serves as clerk in that county." Section 25.2704(e) adds the split that matters at the counter: "The district clerk serves as clerk of the county court at law in matters of concurrent jurisdiction with the district court, and the county clerk serves as clerk of the county court at law in all other cases." A probate application is not a matter of concurrent district-court jurisdiction at the filing stage, so it goes to the county clerk. For a Live Oak County estate that is the Live Oak County Clerk in George West. Do not send a filing to Beeville because Bee County is the administrative county, and do not take it across the hall to the District Clerk: the Live Oak County District Clerk's own page lists the 2nd Multicounty Court at Law among the courts it serves, which is accurate for that court's district-level business and is not the probate counter.

If the decedent lived in one of the other two counties, the same logic runs the other way: a Bee County estate is filed with the Bee County Clerk in Beeville and a McMullen County estate with the McMullen County Clerk in Tilden, even though the same judge may hear it.

If a matter in the proceeding becomes contested, Live Oak County uses the county-court-at-law route, not the assignment or district-court route that applies in counties with only a constitutional county court. Under Estates Code § 32.004(a), in a county with no statutory probate court but with a 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, transfer the contested matter to the county court at law, and the county judge may also transfer the entire proceeding there. The county court at law may then hear what is transferred as if it had been filed in that court originally, and if only the contested matter was transferred, the matter returns to the county court once it is resolved, for further proceedings consistent with the county court at law's orders (§ 32.004(b)). In Live Oak County the destination of that transfer is the 2nd Multicounty Court at Law, whose judge must be a licensed attorney (Government Code § 25.2602(b)) and whose office is at the Live Oak Justice Center in George West. The assignment and district-court transfer route in § 32.003 does not apply here, because Live Oak County has a county court at law exercising original probate jurisdiction.

The shared judge sits in this county, not in the administrative county. This is the Live Oak fact most likely to be reported backwards. Bee County is the administrative county for the 2nd Multicounty Court at Law (Government Code § 25.2704(b)), but Live Oak County's own County Court at Law page puts the judge, and the court's office, fax and conference numbers, at the Live Oak Justice Center, 200 Larry R Busby Drive, George West, which is in Live Oak County. So a Live Oak County filer whose case is set in the shared court has a shorter drive than a Bee County filer whose case is set there. Confirm the building before you go: the County Judge is at the courthouse on Houston Street and the shared court is at the Justice Center.

Two courts, one counter, and no published allocation between them. The Live Oak County Court, the constitutional county court under the elected County Judge, and the 2nd Multicounty Court at Law have concurrent original probate jurisdiction (Estates Code § 32.002(b); Government Code § 25.0003(d)). Neither the county nor the Office of Court Administration's local-rules repository publishes a rule assigning estates to one court or the other, and Live Oak County has no county court at law of its own beyond the shared one. The filing office is the same whichever court hears it, so file with the Live Oak County Clerk and ask at the counter which court your case is set in. The one hint the county's own documents give is that the County Judge's guardianship forms, revised April 2025, are styled "IN THE COUNTY COURT ... OF LIVE OAK COUNTY, TEXAS", which shows the constitutional county court actively running Estates Code matters here. Those are guardianship forms, though, not a docket rule for decedents' estates.

Do not let the District Clerk's page redirect you. The Live Oak County District Clerk lists the 2nd Multicounty Court at Law among the courts it serves, alongside the 36th, 156th and 343rd District Courts, and that is accurate as far as it goes, because the district clerk is the clerk of the shared court in matters of concurrent jurisdiction with the district court (Government Code § 25.2704(e)). A probate application is not one of those matters. It goes to the County Clerk in Room 105. The district clerk's page also states that its office accepts no email, fax or mailed filings and holds no forms, which is another reason not to route an estate there.

The counter closes earlier than the courthouse, and money closes earlier still. The County Clerk is open Monday through Thursday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. The office stays open through lunch except on the dated court days it publishes and during elections, the clerk reports that the basement closes at 4:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 3:30 p.m. on Friday, and the clerk states that it will not accept money transactions after 4:30 Monday through Thursday and 3:30 on Fridays because of daily audits. If you are delivering an original will inside the three-business-day window that follows an electronic application (Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 21(f)(12)), count the hours, not just the days. The clerk also publishes a 2026 county holiday list that includes a closure for the Live Oak County Fair on Friday, March 6, 2026, which is not a holiday any statewide calendar will show you.

The county's e-filing statement is absolute and the statewide rule is not. The County Clerk's page states, "All Guardianship and Probates must be e-filed", with no exception for a person filing without a lawyer. The statewide rule is narrower: attorneys must e-file where electronic filing has been mandated, and unrepresented parties may e-file but are not required to (Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 21(f)(1)). Live Oak County publishes no local e-filing notice, no county effective date and no envelope or lead-document rule that would resolve the difference, so a self-represented filer should call the clerk at 361-449-2733 extension 3 and ask before printing anything.

Live Oak County publishes its monthly Office of Court Administration appointment and fee reports for the County Clerk going back to 2024, which is where a family can see what the county's courts have been paying attorneys ad litem, guardians and other appointees.

Plenty of uncontested Texas estates are handled without a lawyer, but Live Oak County is a harder place than most to do it alone, for reasons that have nothing to do with the size of the estate. The county publishes no application, order, oath or inventory form, so every document is drafted from scratch. It states that all probate matters must be e-filed, without publishing a carve-out for a person filing without counsel, so a self-represented filer is working through the statewide electronic filing system from the first document. And the contested-matter route runs to a different court in a different building: on the judge's own motion or on any party's motion the County Judge transfers a contested matter, and may transfer the entire proceeding, to the county court at law (Estates Code § 32.004), which here is the 2nd Multicounty Court at Law shared with Bee and McMullen Counties. Counsel earns its keep 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 mineral interests have to be sold or divided, when the estate is insolvent or a creditor is pressing, or when a guardianship has to run alongside the estate. County Clerk staff can explain procedure but cannot give legal advice. Sunset can connect families to a vetted Texas probate attorney serving Live Oak County and the surrounding South Texas counties.

Find the accounts and assets. During estate settlement, Sunset searches more than 2,300 financial institutions and public records to surface bank and credit union accounts, retirement plans, brokerage holdings, life insurance, Live Oak County real property, mineral and royalty interests and unclaimed property, so you know what the estate holds and which route fits before anything is filed in George West.

Generate the probate packet. Sunset assembles the paperwork for your route, ready to file with the Live Oak County Clerk in Room 105, which matters here because the county publishes no application or order forms of its own and everything goes in through the electronic filing system.

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 Live Oak 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).