Tom Green County, TX Probate Information

Before you file anything in San Angelo, 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 Tom Green County's own small estate affidavit checklist is blunt about what happens when the facts are not nailed down first: "The complexity of the Code poses many pitfalls for persons attempting to comply with the requirements. An attorney's assistance in drafting an SEA may prevent the denial of an Affidavit that might have been approved had the affidavit been prepared properly." A wrong route means starting over.

Identify every bank and credit union account, retirement plan, brokerage holding, life insurance policy, vehicle and parcel of Tom Green 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 a Tom Green County court. The county's own checklist asks for this level of detail on the face of the papers, down to the last four digits of each account, the year, make, model and vehicle identification number of each vehicle, whether each item is community or separate property, and whether it is claimed as exempt. Sunset's asset-discovery work, searching more than 2,300 financial institutions, exists for exactly this step, so that what is filed with the Tom Green County Clerk describes the estate accurately the first time.

The Tom Green County Clerk's office at 124 West Beauregard in San Angelo is the single probate filing location for the whole county. There is no branch or annex counter for estates: the Civil/Probate Department takes the filing, and the courts sit in San Angelo as well. The court serves every part of the county, including San Angelo, Christoval, Grape Creek, Wall and Veribest and the rural areas between them. Because attorneys file electronically through eFileTexas.gov, most of the paperwork in an uncontested estate never requires a trip to the counter; the trips that matter are delivering the original will and attending the hearing.

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 Tom Green County, the case belongs here even if they died in a hospital elsewhere. 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)). The county's own small estate affidavit form builds the rule into the paperwork, asking for the decedent's address and county of residence at death and adding that if it was not in Tom Green County the affidavit "must include facts supporting venue in Tom Green County."

Naming the court that hears the case takes care in Tom Green County. Tom Green County has two statutory county courts, which the Government Code names as "County Court at Law of Tom Green County" and "County Court at Law No. 2 of Tom Green County" (§ 25.2281). The first one carries no number, so there is no County Court at Law No. 1 here. Each of them has, concurrent with the county court, the probate jurisdiction provided by general law for county courts (Government Code § 25.0003(d)), which means the two courts at law and the Tom Green County Court, the constitutional county court presided over by the elected County Judge, have concurrent original jurisdiction of probate proceedings (Estates Code § 32.002(b)). Tom Green County has no statutory probate court, and the Government Code section that carries the county's own courts at law provisions (§ 25.2282) contains no probate carve-out and no provision sending probate to a different clerk. In practice the county's own probate paperwork points at the courts at law: its small estate affidavit packet captions every filing in a Tom Green County court at law, the Courts at Law page carries a fee section covering civil and probate matters, and County Court at Law No. 2 publishes a probate and guardianship hearing heading. The county publishes no rule for allocating a new estate between the three courts, so ask the Civil/Probate Department at 325-659-6554 which court your cause number lands in before you try to get a hearing date.

If a matter in the proceeding becomes contested, the mechanism is a transfer, and it keeps the case inside Tom Green County. 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 same subsection lets the judge of the county court transfer the entire proceeding. The county court at law may then hear the proceeding as if originally filed in that court, and where only the contested matter was transferred, on the resolution of the matter it is returned to the county court for further proceedings not inconsistent with the orders of the county court at law (§ 32.004(b)). No out-of-county judge is assigned and nothing goes to a district court on this route: the 51st, 119th, 340th and 391st District Courts seated in San Angelo do not receive a transferred estate under this section.

Three courts, and the first one has no number. Tom Green County has two statutory county courts, enacted as the County Court at Law of Tom Green County and County Court at Law No. 2 of Tom Green County (Government Code § 25.2281), and both share original probate jurisdiction with the Tom Green County Court, the constitutional county court (Estates Code § 32.002(b); Government Code § 25.0003(d)). Writing "County Court at Law No. 1" on a Tom Green caption names a court that does not exist. The county publishes no rule allocating new estates among the three courts, so ask the Civil/Probate Department at 325-659-6554 which court your case is assigned to before you chase a hearing date.

There are two clock-based cutoffs and both catch people out. The County Clerk publishes a same-day electronic filing deadline: "All E-Filings requiring service shall be submitted by 3:30 p.m. (cst)." And the counter has its own: "Please arrive before 4PM for Marriage Licenses, Probate filings, and Occupational Drivers' Licenses." Neither is the statewide midnight e-filing deadline in Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 21(f)(5); they are the county's own operational cutoffs for getting service issued and getting a filing taken at the window on the same day.

The counter hours are published month by month. The clerk's page carries a dated hours notice, headed for the month of July when read, giving 7:30 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. Monday through Thursday and an early Friday close at 2:15 p.m., and stating that the office stays open through lunch. That is an early open and a very early Friday close by Texas standards, and because the county labels the notice by month you should confirm the current schedule on 325-659-6554 rather than treating any one month's hours as standing.

Hearings are set by the court, one at a time, and the published schedules are not current. County Court at Law No. 2's court-dates sheet lists civil pre-trials, jury weeks, municipal court appeals and show cause settings on fixed dates, but under the heading for probate, guardianship and bench trials it gives only an instruction: "Contact our office at 325-658-2495 to set a date and time for individual hearings." The County Court at Law sets its own through 325-659-6559. The county currently lists the hearing schedules for both courts as still to be determined, and publishes no filing-to-hearing interval at all, so call rather than planning around a docket day.

Remote appearance exists but it is built for attorneys. The county courts at law publish CourtCall, which the county describes as "a procedure for telephonic appearance by attorneys as a reasonable alternative to personal appearances" and which "is fully voluntary". The request form is not filed with the court; it goes to the service and to the other parties, and the county warns that without a confirmation you are not on the calendar. The county publishes what may be heard this way, including a motion to appoint a guardian ad litem, attorney ad litem or mediator, and what may not, including evidentiary matters, motions for enforcement and show cause hearings. Nothing is published about a self-represented party appearing by phone or video in an estate, so ask when your hearing is set.

Two fee documents, two dates, one instruction. The county's S.B. 41 notice, effective 1/1/2022, prices a new probate case at $360.00 and a subsequent action at $120.00, which matches the statute. The county's nine-page detailed schedule is headed "Revised 1-1-2022" but its probate page is separately headed "REVISED Effective on January 1st, 2018" and prints pre-2022 all-in totals. Where they conflict, the county's own answer is on its Courts at Law page: contact the Civil Section in the County Clerk's office for correct fees.

Know which building you are going to. The County Clerk's office, and therefore the probate filing counter, is at 124 West Beauregard. The county prints the Tom Green County Courthouse address, 112 W. Beauregard, in the footer of every page of its website, and the County Judge sits in the Edd B. and Frances Frink Keyes Building at 113 W. Beauregard Street on the 2nd floor. The county does not publish a courtroom location for probate hearings, so confirm it with the court administrator who gives you the setting.

If a guardianship runs alongside the estate, the county publishes its own instructions. Its Guardianship Rules page, effective June 1, 2018, sets out what a proposed guardian must do before the hearing: register online with the Judicial Branch Certification Commission, complete the guardian training module unless exempt as an attorney, certified guardian or corporate fiduciary, and clear a criminal background check that must reach the court at least 10 days before the hearing. The county warns that processing can take up to two weeks, so start it early.

Plenty of uncontested Tom Green County estates are handled without a lawyer, and the county publishes no rule requiring one. 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 elsewhere. First, the county publishes forms for only one route, the small estate affidavit, so an application to probate a will or to open an administration is drafted from scratch. Second, the county's own small estate affidavit checklist recommends counsel in terms most counties would not put in writing: "The complexity of the Code poses many pitfalls for persons attempting to comply with the requirements. An attorney's assistance in drafting an SEA may prevent the denial of an Affidavit that might have been approved had the affidavit been prepared properly." Third, the contested-matter route matters: if a matter becomes contested, the judge of the county court may, on the judge's own motion, and shall, on the motion of any party, transfer the contested matter, or the entire proceeding, to a Tom Green county court at law (Estates Code § 32.004), and the county's telephonic appearance procedure is written for attorneys rather than for self-represented parties. Clerk staff can explain procedure but cannot give legal advice. Sunset can connect families to a vetted Texas probate attorney serving Tom Green County and the San Angelo 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, Tom Green County real property and unclaimed property, so you know what the estate holds during estate settlement and which route fits before anything is filed in San Angelo.

Generate the probate packet. Sunset assembles the paperwork for your route, drafted to Tom Green County's own requirements, including the case style the county uses and the death certificate the county wants with every probate application, ready to file with the Tom Green County Clerk's Civil/Probate Department.

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 Tom Green 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).