Real County, TX Probate Information

Before you file anything in Leakey, know what is actually in the estate and what it owes. Which Texas route fits, and whether a court 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 your first filing matters more than usual in Real County, because the county publishes no probate instructions, no fee schedule, no forms, no office hours and no docket information, so there is no local sheet to correct a wrong assumption. What the county does have is a small clerk's office that answers the phone: call 830-232-5202 and ask what the counter needs before you file, not after it bounces.

Identify every bank and credit union account, retirement plan, brokerage holding, life insurance policy, vehicle, mineral interest and parcel of Real 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 hunting land, grazing leases, water rights and mineral or royalty interests are worth a specific look in this part of Texas, because they are easy to miss and they are the assets most likely to keep an estate open. Sunset's asset-discovery work, searching more than 2,300 financial institutions, exists for exactly this step, so that the application filed with the Real County Clerk describes the estate accurately the first time.

The Real County Courthouse at 146 S. US Hwy 83 in Leakey is the single probate filing location for the whole county, and it is also where the hearing happens. There is no branch or satellite counter for estates anywhere else in the county, and there is no second clerk's office to choose between: one elected officer holds both the county clerkship and the district clerkship, and estates are filed on the county-clerk side of that office. The court serves every part of the county, including Leakey and Camp Wood, which are the county's own two polling-place communities, and the Frio Canyon and Nueces Canyon country around them.

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 Real County, the case belongs in the Real County Court, even if they died in a hospital in Uvalde, Kerrville or San Antonio, because the place of death does not move venue for a Texas resident. 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. Real County has no statutory probate court and no county court at law, so the Real 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 every statutory probate court in Texas is created, contains no Real County entry, so there is no second court in the county with concurrent original probate jurisdiction and no choice of forum to make. Do not caption a Real County application to a probate court or to a county court at law; the county has neither.

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 that would take a transferred contest is the 38th, and the point Real County readers should not miss is that it sits here. Government Code § 24.140 provides that the 38th Judicial District is composed of Real and Uvalde counties, a two-county district since September 1, 2019, when the Legislature moved Medina County out into the new 454th Judicial District (Acts 2019, 86th Leg., R.S., Ch. 606 (S.B. 891), Sec. 1.03; Government Code § 24.598). Government Code § 24.012(a) then provides that each district court holds in each county in the judicial district terms that commence on the first Mondays in January and July of each year; the section states that it controls over any conflicting district-specific provision, and its only exceptions, for Armstrong County, Harris County and court disruptions after a declared disaster (§ 24.0125), do not touch the 38th. The court says the same thing in its own words: the 38th District Court publishes its court locations as the district courthouse and justice center in Uvalde and the Real County Courthouse at 146 Highway 83 S. in Leakey. So a transferred contest in a Real County estate is heard by a district judge sitting in the same building where the case was filed. The judge's office and staff are in Uvalde, at the Uvalde County Courthouse, Box 17, Uvalde, TX 78801, 830-278-3913, which is where scheduling questions go.

One elected officer, two clerkships, one counter. The county's County Clerk page and its District Clerk page name the same officer and publish the same post office box, the same phone number and the same fax, and the county's contact directory settles it with a single combined line, County/District Clerk. That is what Government Code § 51.501(a) produces: a county with a population of less than 8,000 elects a single clerk to perform the duties of the district clerk and the county clerk, unless the voters vote to keep the offices separate (§ 51.501(b)). The practical effect is reassuring rather than complicated, because you cannot walk into the wrong clerk's office in Leakey. But say plainly that you are opening an estate, so that the filing is docketed on the county-court side rather than the district-court side.

There are two post office boxes in Leakey and only one of them is the clerk's. The County Clerk publishes P.O. Box 750 as its postal address. P.O. Box 446 is the county's general box, and the county's own contact page says whose it is: the main mailing address for Real County is the office of the Real County Judge. Court directories commonly carry Box 446 for the clerk, which is wrong and would route an application or an original will to the judge's office instead of the filing counter. Mail to Box 750. Hand delivery and courier delivery go to 146 S. US Hwy 83, and the clerk adds its own caveat that the office has no UPS or FedEx pickup, so a courier can bring documents in but cannot collect them.

A contested matter does not leave Real County, and that is unusual enough to plan around. Government Code § 24.140 composes the 38th Judicial District of Real and Uvalde counties, and § 24.012(a) provides that each district court holds a term in each county of its district, commencing on the first Mondays in January and July. The 38th District Court publishes the same thing from its own side, listing the Real County Courthouse at 146 Highway 83 S. in Leakey among its court locations alongside the Uvalde district courthouse and justice center. So if the County Judge transfers a contested matter to the district court under Estates Code § 32.003(a)(2), the dispute is heard in the same building where the estate was filed. The judge's chambers, court manager and coordinators are in Uvalde, at the Uvalde County Courthouse, Box 17, 830-278-3913, and that office publishes its own hours as Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., closed for lunch from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m., so scheduling calls go there even though the hearing does not.

Note the district's own recent history if you are working from an older reference. The 38th was a three-county district until September 1, 2019, when the Legislature moved Medina County out and gave it the new 454th Judicial District of its own (Acts 2019, 86th Leg., R.S., Ch. 606 (S.B. 891), Sec. 1.03; Government Code §§ 24.140, 24.598). Directories and practice guides that still describe the 38th as covering Real, Uvalde and Medina are out of date.

The county publishes almost nothing about probate, and that is the single most useful thing to know before you start. No probate page, no county court page, no fee schedule for the clerk, no forms, no checklist, no e-filing notice, no probate docket day, no remote-appearance policy and no office hours for the clerk appear anywhere on the county's own site. Nothing on this page invents any of them. Treat the clerk's phone number as the county's procedure sheet: call 830-232-5202, ask what the office needs, and confirm the counter is open before you make the drive. The one dated local document that does bear on a probate cost is the Sheriff and Constable fee schedule approved August 11, 2025.

There is no county records portal to search, so do not read a missing index as a missing file. Most Texas counties publish at least a land-records search; Real County publishes none, and the only external links on the County Clerk's page are the county association, a Texas counties promotional site and the website vendor. The county's one online payment site belongs to the Justice of the Peace. Probate lookup here is re:SearchTX for electronically filed documents, or the County Clerk for the case number and the file itself.

Plan the trip around the distance, not around the counter. Order extra sets of letters at $2.00 each while you are there (Local Government Code § 118.061), ask about certified copies in the same visit, and confirm by phone before any second trip. The clerk's published practice for recordings is to require a self-addressed stamped envelope for the return of documents, so if you want anything mailed back to you, ask whether to include return postage. If publication of the creditor notice comes up, ask the clerk whether there is a newspaper of general circulation in the county, because if there is not, the Estates Code requires the notice to be posted instead (§ 308.051(c)).

Plenty of uncontested Texas estates are handled without a lawyer, and nothing Real County publishes requires counsel. 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, water rights or mineral interests have 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, Real County publishes no probate forms, no instruction sheet and no fee schedule for the clerk, so every document is drafted from scratch and every cost has to be confirmed by phone. Second, the contested-matter route has a timing trap in it: 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)), so the choice of route is effectively made by whoever moves first. Third, the district court that would otherwise take the contest is the 38th, shared with Uvalde County (Government Code § 24.140); it does sit in Leakey, which helps, but its judge divides the year between two county seats and its office is in Uvalde. County Clerk staff can explain procedure but cannot give legal advice. Sunset can connect families to a vetted Texas probate attorney serving Real County and the surrounding Hill Country.

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, Real 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 Leakey during estate settlement.

Generate the probate packet. Sunset assembles the paperwork for your route, captioned to the Real County Court, the constitutional county court, and ready to file with the Real County Clerk through eFileTexas.gov. Because the county publishes no forms and no instruction sheet, having the documents drafted correctly the first time is worth more here than in a county with a checklist.

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 Real 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).