When probate matters are complicated or go wrong:
We handle contested probate matters, dependent administrations, and large or complex estates in Nueces County and the surrounding Coastal Bend counties.
Practice areas
Most probate work is routine, and we leave that to other firms. We take the estates that have gone wrong or grown complicated, and the ones with enough value at stake that a mistake gets expensive.
Mineral and royalty interests, family businesses, property in more than one state, and estates that owe federal estate tax.
Court-supervised administrations, where every significant act needs a court order first.
Self-dealing, failure to account, failure to distribute, and conflicts of interest.
Disputed family relationships, unknown heirs, and competing claims to the estate.
Lack of capacity, undue influence, forgery, improper execution, and revocation.
Breach of trust claims, disputed distributions, and trustee accountings.
Each of these matters runs differently in the Nueces County courts at law than it does in a big-city probate court. You’ll find more on our practice areas page.
The courts
Nueces County has no dedicated statutory probate court. Probate cases are heard in its county courts at law. Texas Government Code Section 25.1801 creates five of them, and Section 25.1802(a)(5) gives them jurisdiction over the estates of deceased persons. Your probate judge is not a probate-only judge, and a contested estate shares the docket with the other cases that court hears.
Later filings in an estate generally go to the court that already has it, under the original cause number. You don’t get to choose your judge, and a contest filed years later goes to whichever court already has the estate.
These courts also hear more than ordinary probate. Under Section 25.1802(a)(6), a Nueces County court at law shares jurisdiction with the district courts over suits by or against an executor or administrator and over actions involving inter vivos, testamentary, and charitable trusts. In a contested estate, that means a will contest, a fiduciary duty claim, and a fight over trust property can often all be decided by the same judge.
County Courts at Law
Courts 1 through 4 sit at the courthouse on Leopard Street. County Court at Law No. 5, which gives preference to family law and mental health matters, sits separately on Gollihar Road, so check which court has your case before you go. Filings go through the Nueces County District Clerk, which serves as clerk of the county courts at law in probate cases under Government Code Section 25.1802(n).
Contested matters
Plan on mediation before you get a trial date. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 154.021 lets the court refer a pending case to mediation, and contested estate cases are routinely sent there.
Treat mediation as a real chance to resolve the case, and prepare for it the way you’d prepare for a hearing.
You have a right to a jury. Texas Estates Code Section 55.002 entitles a party in a contested probate proceeding to a jury trial as in other civil actions, and capacity and undue influence are fact questions juries decide every day.
You have to ask for one, though. The jury demand has to be filed and the fee paid in time.
Contested cases take time. An uncontested probate is often done in a few months. A contested one goes through pleadings, discovery, depositions, mediation, and a shared trial docket, and it commonly runs well over a year.
Be skeptical of anyone who promises a quick result in a contested Nueces County estate.
Don’t wait
A will contest generally has to be filed within two years of the date the will was admitted to probate. The clock starts at admission, not at death, and those two dates can be years apart.
The statute has two exceptions. A suit to cancel a will for forgery or other fraud can be filed within two years after the forgery or fraud was discovered, and an incapacitated person, which includes a minor, has two years from the date the disability is removed. Both are narrow, and you shouldn’t plan a case around them.
If you think you may have a contest, count two years from the date of admission and call us before you’ve made up your mind.
Service area
Estates with real property in more than one of these counties are routine for us, and they’re one of the situations where handling the estate yourself tends to get expensive.
If what you need is a simple uncontested probate, a muniment of title, or a small estate affidavit, we’re not the right firm. We’ll tell you that on the first call, before you’ve paid us anything.
The first conversation is short and free. Bring what you have: the will if there is one, the date it was admitted to probate if it has been, and a short description of who’s on the other side.