How Long Does Probate Take in Bexar County?

If you are dealing with a probate matter here in San Antonio, the timeline is one of the first things you will want to know. The good news is that Bexar County is, on the whole, a relatively efficient place to probate an estate. We have three statutory probate courts (aptly named: Probate Court No. 1, Probate Court No. 2, and Probate Court No. 3) that hear nothing but probate, guardianship, mental health, and trust matters. The judges and their staffs do this work every day, the local rules are well-developed, and the dockets, as you might expect in a city of almost two million people, are busy.

Here is the honest breakdown.

For an uncontested probate of a valid, original, self-proved will with named executor and clean facts, you can usually expect roughly two to three months from filing to letters testamentary in Bexar County. That is a very approximate timeline. Some cases move faster than that; some move slower. Here is what is actually happening in that window.

After you file the application to probate the will, Texas requires a 10-day waiting period before the court can hear the application. This is statutory. The court cannot waive it, and it runs from the date the clerk posts notice. During that period, your attorney is coordinating a hearing date with the court. Both Bexar probate courts let attorneys schedule uncontested matters through their respective scheduling channels. The day for your hearing will vary depending upon which court you are assigned to — you don’t get to choose; you are assigned to a court at random when your case is filed. Hearings can be by Zoom, in person, or hybrid.

After the hearing, the court signs an order admitting the will. The executor takes the oath, and then the clerk issues letters testamentary. From the day you walk into our office with the original will to the day the executor has letters in hand, two to three months is what we would tell you to plan around. Faster is absolutely possible — we have had matters move in 5 or 6 weeks when the stars align — but we try to treat our clients with compassion. And sometimes that compassion involves recognizing that a person who has lost a loved one may have some good days and some bad days. We are going to gently follow up about once a week to get the document or other information we need rather than intrude on your grieving process. That said, if you are in a hurry and want more frequent contact, just ask. We can absolutely do that.

After letters issue, the executor begins the actual administration: collecting and inventorying assets, publishing notice to creditors, paying valid debts, dealing with the IRS where relevant, and ultimately distributing what is left. How long that takes depends entirely on the complexity of the estate. For a clean, smaller estate, full administration can wrap up in 6 to 9 months from the date of filing. For a more complicated one — a closely held business, mineral interests, multiple real properties, a thicket of accounts that need to be closed — figure 9 to 18 months total, sometimes longer.

When someone dies without a will, the process takes longer in Bexar County for a structural reason: before the court can do anything about administration, it has to formally determine who the heirs are. That requires either an affidavit of heirship (an out-of-court alternative for some situations) or a judicial determination of heirship inside the probate proceeding.

A judicial heirship determination requires the court to appoint an attorney ad litem to represent unknown heirs, who investigates and reports back to the court. Two disinterested witnesses have to provide statements, by affidavit or in testimony, about the decedent’s family history. Heirs have to be served or sign waivers of citation. A required citation by publication — plus affidavit and waiting period — must be completed. None of this is fast.

For an uncontested intestacy with a cooperative family and a relatively simple family tree, you should plan for roughly three to five months from filing to letters of administration. If the family tree is more complicated — a prior marriage with children no one has seen in twenty years, half-siblings, an uncle nobody can locate, children in foreign countries — it can take longer, sometimes considerably longer. The administration phase that follows looks similar to a testate administration: creditor period, inventory, collection, distribution.

If the estate qualifies for the small estate affidavit procedure (under $75,000 net, no real property other than the homestead, no will), you can sometimes resolve a Bexar County intestate matter in a few weeks. It is worth asking up front whether you qualify.

Everything above applies to uncontested probates. Once a will contest, an heirship contest, a fight over the appointment of an executor, or a breach of fiduciary duty claim is filed, you are no longer in uncontested probate — you are in full-blown litigation. The probate court will hear the case, but the procedural posture changes completely. There is discovery. There are depositions. There are motions. There may be expert witnesses on testamentary capacity or undue influence. There may be a jury trial.

We cannot tell you how long a contested probate matter will take. What we can tell you is that the realistic range is anywhere from several months to several years. A contest where one side runs out of money or realizes early that the evidence is thin can wrap up relatively quickly. A contest involving a large estate, sophisticated parties, multiple lawyers, and genuinely contested facts can grind on for years and consume a substantial fraction of the estate in legal fees.

If anyone — including a lawyer — tells you with confidence how long a contested probate matter will take, be skeptical. Nobody knows. We can give you a sense of the next phase (discovery, summary judgment, trial setting), but the overall timeline is genuinely a function of how aggressive the parties are, how strong the evidence is, what the judge’s docket looks like, and whether the case settles.

A few things particular to Bexar County affect timing.

Three courts, three cultures. Probate Court No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3 have agreed to the Bexar County local probate rules, but each judge runs the court a little differently. Setting procedures, submission dockets, and acceptable formats for proposed orders are not identical across courts. An attorney who regularly practices in all three will move your case faster than one who has to learn the local conventions on the fly.

All three courts use online tools. These systems are convenient, but they reward attorneys who know what each court actually wants to see in a clean filing. A messy order in the wrong format will get bounced and cost you a week.

Submission matters. Routine matters can sometimes be handled by submission rather than a live hearing, which can shave time off your case. Whether your matter qualifies depends on the type of pleading and the court’s current rules.

For most Bexar County families, here is what to plan around:

• Uncontested will, simple estate: 2 to 3 months to letters; 6 to 9 months to closing.
• Uncontested intestacy, cooperative family: 3 to 5 months to letters; 9 to 12 months to closing.
• Uncontested will or intestacy, complex estate: Letters on the same schedule, but add six months to two years to final settlement of the estate.
• Anything contested: Don’t plan — prepare. Talk to your lawyer about a budget and a strategy, and assume it will take longer than you want it to.

Every case has its own quirks, and none of these numbers is a guarantee. But if you are wondering when this is going to be over, those are the ranges to keep in mind.

If you want a candid assessment of your particular case, give us a call. We are based here in San Antonio, we practice in all three Bexar County probate courts regularly, and we are happy to tell you what your timeline likely looks like.