Potter County, TX Probate Information

Before you file anything in Amarillo, 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. The answer matters before your first filing in Potter County for a very concrete reason: the county's fee schedule prices each route separately, so a Letters Testamentary application, a muniment of title and a small estate affidavit cost three different amounts here, and choosing wrong means paying twice.

Identify every bank and credit union account, retirement plan, brokerage holding, life insurance policy, vehicle and parcel of Potter 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 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 Potter County Clerk describes the estate accurately the first time.

The Potter County Courthouse at 500 South Fillmore Street in Amarillo is the single probate filing location for the whole county. There is no branch or annex counter for estates: the County Clerk's Court Department takes filings in Suite 201, the County Judge sits in Suite 103, and the two county courts at law are in Suites 405 and 402 of the same building. The court serves every part of Potter County, including the Amarillo city area that lies north of the county line and the rural Panhandle country around it.

Venue is 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)). 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)). There is a local trap in that rule worth naming: Amarillo is not wholly inside Potter County. The city extends south across the county line, and the City of Amarillo lists both Potter County and Randall County among its partner governments. An Amarillo mailing address therefore does not by itself put an estate in Potter County. Check which county the decedent's home was actually in before you file, because filing in the wrong county wastes the fee and the citation.

Which court hears the case is the fact a generic page gets wrong here. Potter County has no statutory probate court. Government Code § 25.1901 gives it two statutory county courts, "County Court at Law No. 1 of Potter County" and "County Court at Law No. 2 of Potter County", both sitting in Amarillo, and Government Code § 25.0003(d) gives every statutory county court in a county without a statutory probate court "concurrent with the county court, the probate jurisdiction provided by general law for county courts". That is Estates Code § 32.002(b): the county court at law exercising original probate jurisdiction and the county court have concurrent original jurisdiction of probate proceedings. Potter's own county-court-at-law provisions (Government Code § 25.1902) add concurrent jurisdiction with the justice courts in civil matters, with the district court in family law cases, and with the district court in felony arraignments and pretrial matters, and they create no probate carve-out in either direction. Potter is therefore unlike Harris County, whose civil courts at law are stripped of probate jurisdiction by § 25.1032(a), and unlike Parker County (§ 25.1863) and Hood County (§ 25.1132), whose courts at law take probate only on a contest.

In practice, estates in Potter County are docketed principally in the constitutional County Court. The county's own published attorney appointment and fee report for March 2026 lists the county's probate causes under "County Court" with County Judge Nancy Tanner making the appointments, alongside one estate matter listed under County Court at Law #1 with Judge Walt Weaver. Both readings are consistent with § 32.002(b), because the jurisdiction really is shared. Ask the County Clerk's Court Department at (806) 379-2284 which docket a particular filing will land on rather than assuming.

If a matter in a probate proceeding becomes contested, the constitutional County Court does not necessarily keep it. Under Estates Code § 32.004, in a county in which there is 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 judge of the county court may also transfer the entire proceeding to the county court at law. Potter County has two county courts at law available for that transfer. Note what § 32.004 does not do: it is not the small-county route in § 32.003, so a Potter County contest is not sent out to an assigned statutory probate court judge or to a district court under that section. The district courts seated in Potter County, the 47th, 108th, 181st, 251st and 320th, do not open estates.

Three courts, one counter, and the shared jurisdiction is real. Potter County has two county courts at law and a constitutional county court, and all three can hear a probate proceeding (Estates Code § 32.002(b); Government Code §§ 25.0003(d), 25.1901). The county resolves the confusion at the filing stage: every estate application goes to the same place, the Potter County Clerk's Court Department in Suite 201, because the clerk "serves as Clerk of the Court for three courts". What the county's own record shows about the docket is that estates are heard principally in the County Court before the County Judge, with county court at law involvement in some matters. Style your papers for the court that will hear the case and ask the Court Department at (806) 379-2284 which one that is before you file.

The district clerk sentence on the county's website is easy to misread. The clerk's own page says "The District Clerk serves as Clerk of the Court in all civil and family cases for County Courts at Law", which describes the split in Government Code § 25.1902(m): the district clerk is clerk for the enumerated matters the courts at law share with the district court, and "the county clerk serves as clerk of the court in all other matters". Probate is not among the enumerated matters, so an estate is filed with the County Clerk. The clerk's own conduct confirms it: the County Clerk publishes the probate fee schedule, takes probate record requests, and signs and posts the probate citations.

Citations are posted at the courthouse, and the county publishes them. In Potter County the clerk issues the citation, it is posted at the Potter County Courthouse, and the return language on the county's own posted citations reads that the application "may be acted on by the Court at any call of the docket on or after" a stated date at 10:00 a.m., "that being the first Monday next after the expiration of ten days from the date of posting". The clerk publishes the current set of posted probate and guardianship citations as a PDF on its own page, which is an unusually transparent practice and a good way to see how a Potter County filing is actually captioned. Nothing is heard before the return date, so plan for the posting period.

The clerk will retrieve a record but will not search for you. Potter County publishes a signed notice stating that "The Potter County Clerk and Staff will not conduct property or judicial record searches that are not authorized by statute" and that the office "will retrieve records from provided specific information". For a probate file the clerk asks for the name of the deceased and the approximate date of death. Public search computers are available in the office during business hours, and the county links its own court records portal for searching from home. Plan to arrive with the decedent's full name and date of death rather than expecting counter staff to find a case from a partial description.

Costs differ by route here in a way they do not in most counties. Because Potter publishes a per-cause-of-action schedule, the price of getting it wrong is visible: $472.00 to open a Letters Testamentary or administration case, $470.00 for a muniment of title (Estates Code chapter 257) or a determination of heirship, and $362.00 for a small estate affidavit. Settle the route before you file. The schedule also makes clear that the $27.00 inventory charge applies only to an inventory filed after the 90th day, so a timely inventory costs nothing at the counter.

A contest moves the case sideways, not out of the courthouse. In a county with a county court at law exercising original probate jurisdiction, a contested matter is transferred to the county court at law, on the county judge's own motion or on any party's motion, and the county judge may transfer the entire proceeding there as well (Estates Code § 32.004). Potter has two courts at law to receive such a transfer. The small-county mechanism in § 32.003, assignment of a statutory probate court judge or transfer to a district court, does not apply here, so no Potter County probate contest goes to the 47th, 108th, 181st, 251st or 320th District Court by that route.

Uncontested Potter County estates are handled without a lawyer every week, and the county supports that: it publishes a fee schedule detailed enough to budget from, a bilingual fee-waiver form, and a written policy for applicants who are not represented. Read that policy first. The Potter County Clerk publishes a "Court Policy Regarding 'Pro Se' Applicants", and because the county posts it as a scanned image its terms cannot be summarised here; open it, or ask the Court Department at (806) 379-2284 what it requires, before you assume you can file a particular application yourself. 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 has to be sold or divided, when the estate is insolvent or a creditor is pressing, or when a guardianship runs alongside the estate. The contested-matter route is a specific reason to have a lawyer in Potter County: because the county has two county courts at law exercising original probate jurisdiction, a contested matter is transferred to a county court at law on the county judge's own motion or on any party's motion, and the entire proceeding may go with it (Estates Code § 32.004), which changes who hears the case and how it is prepared. County Clerk staff can explain procedure but cannot give legal advice. Sunset can connect families to a vetted Texas probate attorney serving Potter County and the Amarillo 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, Potter County real property and unclaimed property, so you know what the estate holds and which estate settlement route fits before anything is filed in Amarillo.

Generate the probate packet. Sunset assembles the paperwork for your route, ready to file with the Potter County Clerk's Court Department, including the electronic filing through eFileTexas.gov and the original will that has to follow it to the counter.

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 Potter 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).