Presidio County, TX Probate Information

Before you file anything in Marfa, 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 Presidio County, because the county publishes no probate instructions, no forms and no docket information, so there is nothing local to correct a wrong start and every trip to the counter is a long one.

Identify every bank and credit union account, retirement plan, brokerage holding, life insurance policy, vehicle and parcel of Presidio 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 border-county land often carries mineral interests and old undivided family shares that no one has inventoried in a generation, and those have to be found before the application describes the estate. Sunset's asset-discovery work, searching more than 2,300 financial institutions, exists for exactly this step.

The Presidio County Courthouse at 300 N. Highland Avenue in Marfa is the single probate filing location for the whole county. The County Clerk takes filings on the 1st floor and the County Judge sits on the same floor. The court serves every community in the county, including Marfa, the city of Presidio on the Rio Grande at the far south of the county, and Redford, along with the ranch country between them. The county maintains facilities outside Marfa, but it publishes no branch estate counter, so a paper filing is made in Marfa and an electronic filing is made through eFileTexas.gov from anywhere.

Venue is the ordinary Texas rule: 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 Presidio County, the case belongs in the Presidio County Court even if they died in a hospital in Alpine, Odessa or El Paso. 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 on a county this size. Presidio County has no statutory probate court and no county court at law, so the Presidio County Court, the constitutional county court, has original jurisdiction of probate proceedings (Estates Code § 32.002(a)) and the elected County Judge presides. The other trial courts seated in the county are the two Justice of the Peace precincts and the 394th District Court, 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.

The district court in that sentence is a regional one, which is worth knowing before a dispute starts. Government Code § 24.539(a) composes the 394th Judicial District of Brewster, Culberson, Hudspeth, Jeff Davis and Presidio Counties, and the same section sets the court's terms: the terms of the 394th District Court begin in Presidio County on the third Monday after the first Mondays in January and July (§ 24.539(b)(5)). The court's own site states that Judge Monty Kimball has served as District Judge of the 394th since January 1, 2025, gives the court's main office as 201 W Ave E in Alpine with the number 432-837-5831, and says that the court travels to all five counties in the district and asks people to call before stopping by.

One officer, two clerkships, and probate sits on the county side. Presidio County publishes the same person, Carolina Catano, as County Clerk and as District Clerk (verified July 2026), with a separate phone line for each role: (432) 729-4812 for the county clerk office and (432) 729-3857 for the district clerk office. That is the arrangement Government Code § 51.501(a) prescribes for a county with a population of fewer than 8,000, unless the voters vote to keep the offices separate (§ 51.501(b)). The distinction still matters on paper, because a joint clerk must use the district court seal for district court acts and the county court seal for county court acts (§ 51.502). An estate is a county court matter (Estates Code § 22.007(b)), so say county clerk when you call, and address estate mail to the Presidio County Clerk at P.O. Box 789, which is the same box the other side of the office uses.

Presidio County is on central time, and that decides your filing deadline. Marfa sits west of Albuquerque, so people assume mountain time, and they are wrong. Under 49 CFR 71.7(e) the boundary between the central and mountain zones runs westerly along the Texas and New Mexico line "to the east line of Hudspeth County, Tex.; thence southerly along the east line of Hudspeth County, Tex., to the boundary between the United States and Mexico." Presidio County lies east of that line, so only El Paso and Hudspeth Counties are in the mountain zone and Presidio County is in the central zone. An electronically filed document is timely if it is filed before midnight in the court's time zone on the day it is due (Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 21(f)(5)), so a Presidio County deadline expires an hour earlier than an El Paso one.

The county publishes almost nothing local, and the honest answer is to call. There is no county probate page, no probate instruction sheet, no local forms, no fee schedule for probate, no docket day, no filing-to-hearing interval and no counter hours on any Presidio County page. The clerk's one published fee document covers vital records, assumed names, recordings and copies and has no probate line. Nothing on this page invents those details, and the practical consequence is that a short call to (432) 729-4812 before you drive to Marfa is worth more here than a search of the county website.

The district court that receives a contested matter is a five-county court that travels. Government Code § 24.539(a) composes the 394th Judicial District of Brewster, Culberson, Hudspeth, Jeff Davis and Presidio Counties, and § 24.539(b)(5) sets its Presidio County terms to begin on the third Monday after the first Mondays in January and July. The court's own site states that Judge Monty Kimball has served as District Judge since January 1, 2025, gives the main office as 201 W Ave E in Alpine with the number 432-837-5831, and states that the court travels to all five counties and asks people to call before stopping by. It also publishes standing orders on remote appearance and courtroom attire and a 2026 standing order on artificial intelligence. All of that is district court practice; it reaches a Presidio County estate only if the County Judge sends a contested matter there under Estates Code § 32.003(a)(2), and even then the matter stays in the county, because the 394th holds its Presidio County terms in Presidio County. The county court keeps the management of the rest of the estate in the meantime (§ 32.003(g)).

Publication of the creditor notice deserves a question at the counter. A personal representative must publish notice to creditors in a newspaper of general circulation in the county in which the letters were issued within one month of receiving them (Estates Code § 308.051(a)), and the statute has a built-in answer for a county that has none: "the notice must be posted and the return made and filed as otherwise required by this title" (§ 308.051(c)). Ask the Presidio County Clerk which publication the court accepts and what it charges before you assume, because the cost and the timing of that notice are usually the second-largest expense of a small estate after the filing fee.

Distance is a real procedural factor here, not a complaint. The city of Presidio is at the far south of the county on the Rio Grande and the courthouse is in Marfa; the nearest law library listed by the Texas State Law Library is hours away in El Paso, Odessa or Midland; and the nearest legal aid office is Texas RioGrande Legal Aid in Alpine. Plan the filing so that one trip does as much as possible: bring everything the clerk may ask for, and order enough Letters Testamentary or Letters of Administration at $2.00 each (Local Government Code § 118.061) to cover every institution the estate touches.

Plenty of uncontested Texas estates are handled without a lawyer, but Presidio County is a harder place than most to do it alone, because the county publishes no probate instructions, no forms, no fee schedule and no docket information, so there is nothing local to check your work against. 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 ranch land, mineral interests or an undivided family share has to be sold or partitioned, when the estate is insolvent or a creditor is pressing, when property or family sit on both sides of the border, or when a guardianship has to run alongside the estate. The contested-matter route is the other reason to get advice early: 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)), a motion for assignment filed before a transfer must be granted (§ 32.003(b)), and the district court in question is the 394th, a five-county court whose judge is based in Alpine but whose Presidio County terms are held in Presidio County, beginning twice a year (Government Code § 24.539(b)(5)), so a transfer changes the judge and the timetable rather than sending the case out of the county. Those are timing points that are 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 Presidio County and the Big Bend region.

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, Presidio County real property and unclaimed property, so you know what the estate holds and which route fits before anything is filed in Marfa.

Generate the probate packet. Sunset assembles the estate settlement paperwork for your route, drafted for a county that publishes no forms of its own, captioned for the Presidio County Court and ready to file with the Presidio County Clerk.

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 Presidio 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).