The first useful thing anyone can do after a death in Texas is not a filing. It is an inventory, done slowly, that separates two categories of property: the assets that move to a living person by contract or by operation of law, and the assets that sit frozen until a judge signs something. That distinction sets the entire cost of the next year. An estate made up entirely of the first category can close for the price of certified death certificates and postage, while an estate holding a single house in one person's name alone will involve a courthouse, an attorney, and a filing fee.
What moves without a court order
Payable on death and transfer on death accounts pass to the named beneficiary when the bank sees a death certificate and identification, and nothing about that process touches the probate court. The same is true of life insurance proceeds, retirement accounts with a living designated beneficiary, and property held in joint tenancy with right of survivorship. Texas also allows spouses to sign a community property survivorship agreement, which converts jointly held community property into something that passes directly to the surviving spouse. A transfer on death deed, if it was signed and recorded before the death, moves real estate the same way.
Compare what that costs against the alternative. Collecting a payable on death account is an afternoon at a branch, a form, and no professional fee at all. Getting the same money out of an account titled only in the decedent's name, with no beneficiary listed, requires letters testamentary or letters of administration, which requires a filed application, a hearing, and an attorney. The money is identical. The paperwork behind it is the difference between zero dollars and several thousand, and it was decided years earlier by whoever did or did not fill out a beneficiary card.
What needs a judge
Real property in the decedent's name alone is the most common trigger. A title company will not insure a sale, and a buyer's lender will not close, without a probated will or a court order establishing who the heirs are. Vehicles, brokerage accounts without beneficiaries, mineral interests, business interests, and any claim the estate might bring against someone else fall in the same category. Debts matter here too, because creditors have to be handled through a process that gives them notice and a deadline, and only a court appointed representative can do that in a way that ends the exposure.
The size of the estate matters less than its shape. A three hundred thousand dollar estate consisting of a house, a checking account, and a pickup truck will cost more to settle than a two million dollar estate held entirely in a funded revocable trust with beneficiary designations layered underneath. That is the practical lesson of the sorting exercise, and it is worth doing on paper before calling anyone, because the answer determines which of four Texas procedures is even available and therefore what the representation will cost.
The clock that actually matters
Nothing has to be filed in the first month. There is no statute pressing on the family in the weeks after a funeral, no penalty for waiting, and no advantage in rushing an application to a court that will set a hearing on its own schedule regardless. What does exist is a four year outer limit for offering a will to probate in Texas. Miss it, and the will generally cannot be admitted in the ordinary way; the estate is then treated much as if there were no will, which usually means a more expensive proceeding to determine heirship instead of a straightforward probate.
Four years sounds generous, and for most families it is, but it runs quietly while everyone assumes someone else is handling it. Property taxes come due, insurance lapses on a vacant house, and a mortgage servicer keeps drafting from an account nobody can access. The federal side has its own timing: the IRS is responsible for the decedent's final income tax return and for estate tax filings where they apply, and those deadlines are not tied to the probate calendar. A short, deliberate delay is fine. A drifting one gets expensive.
Pricing the decision before you make it
Texas requires that an executor be represented by counsel when acting for an estate, so the attorney question is about scope and fee structure rather than whether to hire one. A muniment of title, available where there is a will and no unpaid debts other than a mortgage, is typically a flat fee and a single hearing. Independent administration costs more, dependent administration considerably more, because every significant act needs court approval. Asking an El Paso County Probate Attorney which procedure the asset list supports, and what each one is quoted at, turns an open-ended expense into a number.
Filings in El Paso County go to the county court sitting in probate matters, and the mechanics are specific enough to be worth learning separately: where the application is filed, what the clerk charges, how posting works, how long the wait runs between filing and hearing, and what the judge expects to see at that hearing. Those details are covered elsewhere on this site, along with a comparison of the four procedures and a line by line accounting of what one family actually paid.
Start with the inventory. Two columns, every account and every deed, and an honest note about how each one is titled. The column on the left may be long enough that the courthouse never comes into it.