Travis County is where most of the probate real estate in the Austin metro lives. When a parent dies and leaves a house in Austin, Round Rock, Lakeway, or anywhere else inside the county lines, the executor or administrator is the one who has to sell it. This guide walks through the actual probate process in Travis County, what selling an inherited house looks like here, and the specific things Austin executors should know that ordinary home sellers do not.
I am Jeremy Kritt, a Texas Real Estate Broker (TREC license number 692961) and the owner of Kritt Real Estate LLC (firm license number 9011672). Texas Probate Real Estate is the probate-specialty brand of that brokerage. I work probate sales across Austin, San Antonio, and the Central Texas counties between them every week. None of what follows is legal advice. It is the practical reality I see on every transaction.
Travis County Probate Court, the basics
Travis County has two statutory probate courts. Both sit in the Heman Marion Sweatt Travis County Courthouse at 1000 Guadalupe Street in downtown Austin. The probate clerk and the probate courtrooms are in the same building.
Travis County Probate Court Number 1 is presided over by Judge Guy Herman, who has held the seat since 1985 and is one of the most experienced probate judges in Texas. Travis County Probate Court Number 2 is presided over by Judge Nick Chu. The two courts share jurisdiction and split caseload, so you do not pick which one your case lands in. It is assigned at filing.
The Travis County Probate Clerk handles filings. Standard probate filing fees in Travis County typically run between approximately three hundred and five hundred dollars, depending on whether you are filing a will, an application for administration, or another instrument. The Clerk publishes a current fee schedule and accepts filings during normal business hours Monday through Friday.
Two paths through Travis County probate
Texas uses two main administration structures, and Travis County is no exception. Which structure your case falls into is the single biggest factor in how long the process will take and how much court involvement you will have along the way.
Independent administration
This is the typical Texas path. Most well-drafted wills request it explicitly, and Texas law strongly favors it. Under an independent administration, the personal representative (the executor named in the will, or the administrator appointed by the court) has authority to handle estate matters without going back to the court for permission on each step. That includes listing and selling the real estate. After Letters Testamentary or Letters of Administration are issued, the executor or administrator can sign listing agreements, accept offers, and close on a sale without separate court approval. Independent administrations in Travis County typically wrap up in approximately six months, depending on the estate’s complexity.
Dependent administration
This is the court-supervised version. The court has to approve significant decisions, including the sale of real estate. This path is required in some cases, including contested estates or estates where the will did not request independent administration and the heirs do not all consent. Dependent administrations in Travis County typically take nine to twelve months. A real estate sale under dependent administration involves an application to sell, court approval, and an order approving the sale before closing. It is a more deliberate process. The sale timeline has to stay aligned with the court process, which the attorney handles at each step.
Most Travis County probate property sales proceed under independent administration. If your attorney is recommending dependent administration, it usually means there is a specific reason. A contest, a minor heir, a specific will provision, or heirs who cannot agree. None of those are reasons to panic. They just mean the process has more guardrails.
Letters Testamentary and the 90-day clock
Letters Testamentary (or Letters of Administration if there is no will) are the document that gives the executor or administrator legal authority to act on behalf of the estate. Nothing about the real estate can really move until Letters are issued. Banks, title companies, and buyers all need to see them.
In Travis County, Letters are typically issued within two to four weeks of the initial probate filing, assuming there are no contests and the will is admitted to probate without issue. Once Letters are in hand, the personal representative can sign the listing agreement on behalf of the estate, the brokerage can begin marketing the property, offers can be accepted and counter-offered, and title companies will treat the Letters as proof of authority during closing.
After Letters are issued, the statutory clock starts on a separate deadline: the 90-day inventory. The personal representative has 90 days to file an inventory, appraisement, and list of claims with the court. The inventory has to list everything the estate owns and its fair market value as of the date of death. This is one of the most-missed deadlines in Texas probate, and it has consequences. If you are selling the house and the inventory has not been filed, your attorney needs to be on it.
Selling a probate house in Travis County, step by step
The selling process for a probate property in Travis County looks similar to a regular Austin home sale on the surface, but there are practical differences at each stage.
Listing
The personal representative signs the listing agreement on behalf of the estate, not personally. Under Texas Property Code §5.008(e), a fiduciary administering a decedent’s estate is exempt from furnishing the standard Seller’s Disclosure Notice that owner-occupants are required to provide. The estate sells without that form, which is a meaningful procedural difference for executors who never lived in the property. The buyer is informed via the contract that the sale is by a fiduciary, and the property is typically sold as-is. Federal lead-based paint disclosure still applies for homes built before 1978, and HOA disclosures still apply where the property is in an HOA. The listing should be priced based on the property’s actual condition, including any deferred maintenance, vacant-home issues, and personal property that needs to be cleared out before showings.
Marketing
Probate properties in Austin attract a specific kind of buyer interest the moment the case is filed. Cash investors, wholesalers, and we-buy-houses operators monitor Travis County probate filings and start reaching out to the executor within days. They send letters, postcards, text messages, and door knockers. Their offers are routinely twenty to forty percent below open-market value. The right move is almost always to ignore them and put the property on the open market through a broker. A broker-marketed Austin probate property in reasonable condition will sell well above what the wholesalers offer, and the difference goes to the heirs.
Offers and negotiation
The personal representative reviews and accepts offers. In a Travis County independent administration, this is a direct decision the personal representative makes. In a dependent administration, the offer has to be presented to the court for approval before closing, and a hearing is held to confirm the sale terms.
Inspections
Buyers usually want an inspection, and inspections on probate properties frequently turn up deferred maintenance items. The personal representative is not personally on the hook for repairs (the estate is), but the negotiation around what gets fixed versus what gets credited needs to factor in what the estate can actually afford to do. Sometimes the right answer is to credit the buyer at closing rather than to coordinate repairs from out of state.
Title
The title company will need copies of the will, the order admitting the will to probate, the Letters Testamentary, and any necessary tax certificates. A title officer who has handled probate before will know what they need without prompting. One who has not will ask for things they do not really need and miss things they actually do. Title selection matters more on probate sales than on ordinary sales.
Closing
The personal representative signs all closing documents on behalf of the estate. The proceeds go to the estate’s account, not to the personal representative personally, and from there they are distributed to the heirs per the will (or per Texas intestacy rules if there is no will). Most Travis County probate property sales, once the property is listed and there are no major complications, close in 30 to 60 days. The court timeline (getting Letters issued) is usually the longer constraint, not the sale itself.
Austin neighborhoods where I work probate sales
Travis County covers the City of Austin plus a number of surrounding suburbs. Common neighborhoods where I handle probate transactions include:
Central Austin and historic neighborhoods: Tarrytown, Westlake, Hyde Park, Allandale, Crestview, Brentwood, Travis Heights, Bouldin Creek, East Austin, Mueller, Old West Austin, Pemberton Heights, Zilker, Barton Hills, Rosedale, Hancock, North Loop, and Cherrywood.
Newer Austin neighborhoods and edge-of-city subdivisions: Circle C, Southwest Austin, South Lamar, Highland, Riverside, and Steiner Ranch.
Travis County suburbs outside Austin city limits: Lakeway, Bee Cave, West Lake Hills, Rollingwood, Sunset Valley, Manor, Lago Vista, and Jonestown.
Travis County also borders Williamson County (Round Rock, Cedar Park, Leander, Georgetown, Pflugerville) to the north, and Hays County (San Marcos, Buda, Kyle, Dripping Springs) to the south. I work probate sales across all of those counties as well, so if the property is on the county line, that is not an obstacle.
The neighborhood matters because the buyer pool varies. A Tarrytown probate sale has a different audience than a Riverside probate sale, and the marketing approach reflects that.
Common Travis County probate scenarios I see
The executor lives in another state
This is one of the most common scenarios I see in Travis County. The decedent lived in Austin, the adult child who is named executor lives in Phoenix or Chicago or somewhere not driving distance, and the property is sitting empty needing decisions. The whole transaction can be handled remotely. The executor flies in once for closing or signs via a mobile notary in their home state, and the broker manages everything on the ground. Remote-executor work is a specialty of the firm. I run that workflow on a regular basis.
Heirs do not agree on what to do with the house
Two or three siblings inherit the property and they want different things. One wants to sell quickly. Another wants to rent it out. Another wants to keep it as a family asset. In Texas, under independent administration, the personal representative has authority to make the call and sell. When the heirs cannot agree and they end up as co-owners after the estate closes, the situation can move into a partition action. This is one of the most emotionally loaded scenarios in probate, and it benefits enormously from the personal representative working with a broker who has navigated it before.
The property has significant deferred maintenance
Common in Austin, where many older neighborhoods have houses that have been lived in by the decedent for thirty or forty years without major updates. The decision is whether to invest in pre-listing improvements, sell as-is to a retail buyer who will discount for condition, or sell to an investor. The right answer depends on the estate’s cash position, the heirs’ goals, and the specific market segment of the property. We walk through the math on the first call.
The property has tenants
Texas has specific rules about tenant rights during a sale, and Austin tenants in particular tend to know their rights. A tenant-occupied probate property is sellable, but it requires coordination on showings, lease assignment, and sometimes lease termination. The lease survives the death of the landlord; the heirs (and ultimately the buyer) inherit it.
The property has liens or back property taxes
Common when the decedent was managing finances poorly in the last years of life. These get resolved through the sale, out of the proceeds, but they have to be flagged early so the title company is prepared and the heirs understand how the math will work at closing.
Why work with a probate-focused broker
Most Austin real estate agents have done one or two probate sales in their career. They are competent at general real estate but they treat probate as another kind of transaction. The reality is that probate has its own pace, its own paperwork, its own emotional dynamics, and its own buyer pool. A broker who handles these weekly knows the title officers, knows the probate attorneys, knows what Judge Herman or Judge Chu will want to see if a question comes up, and knows the difference between an investor lowball and a real offer.
I run an owner-operator brokerage. I am the owner of Kritt Real Estate LLC, the broker of record, and the broker who is on every probate transaction personally. There is no team agent. The person who picks up the phone on your first call is the person who lists the property, negotiates the offers, coordinates with the title company, and signs at closing.
I am a Texas Real Estate Broker (license number 692961), which puts me in the top approximately ten percent of Texas real estate license holders. The broker license requires four or more years of experience, hundreds of additional education hours beyond the agent license, and a separate examination. For an executor or attorney looking at who to trust with the largest single asset in an estate, the broker credential matters.
I work alongside the probate attorney managing the case, not in place of one. The attorney handles the legal proceeding. I handle the real estate. The coordination is what matters because court timelines and sale timelines have to stay in sync.
Frequently asked questions about Travis County probate real estate
How long does probate take in Travis County?
Independent administration typically wraps up in about six months. Dependent administration takes nine to twelve months. The longest pole is usually the time it takes to get Letters Testamentary issued, which is typically two to four weeks after the initial filing. Once Letters are in hand, the sale itself typically closes in 30 to 60 days.
Can I sell a probate house in Austin before probate is finished?
Yes, in independent administration. Once Letters Testamentary are issued, the personal representative has authority to list and sell. The estate does not have to be fully closed for the sale to happen. In dependent administration, the court has to approve the sale.
Who signs the listing agreement and the closing documents?
The personal representative (executor or administrator), in their capacity as representative of the estate. Not personally. The title company will need Letters Testamentary or Letters of Administration to confirm authority.
What is the difference between Travis County Probate Court 1 and Probate Court 2?
Both are statutory probate courts with the same jurisdiction and procedures. They divide caseload between them. Court 1 is presided over by Judge Guy Herman; Court 2 by Judge Nick Chu. Your case is assigned to one or the other when you file. You do not pick.
I am the executor and I live out of state. Can I sell the property without coming to Austin?
Yes. The transaction can be managed remotely. I work remote-executor cases regularly. You will need to either fly in once for closing or sign via a mobile notary in your home state. Texas title companies are accustomed to this and the workflow is well-understood.
Should I take a cash offer from an investor who reached out after the probate was filed?
Almost never, without checking the open market first. Cash offers on probate properties typically come in twenty to forty percent below open-market value. Investors are betting the executor is overwhelmed and wants a fast resolution. A broker-marketed Austin probate property in reasonable condition will sell well above the wholesale offer in most cases. The difference goes to the heirs.
What if the property is in bad condition?
It is still sellable. The decision is whether to invest in pre-listing repairs, sell as-is to a retail buyer (who will discount for condition), or sell to an investor at a deeper discount. Each path has different math. We work through it on the first call.
What does the probate attorney do versus what does the real estate broker do?
The probate attorney handles the court proceeding: filing the will, getting Letters Testamentary issued, the inventory, dealing with creditors, the final estate accounting. The broker handles the real estate sale: listing, marketing, offers, inspections, title, closing. The two roles coordinate but they do not overlap.
What are the filing fees in Travis County probate?
Standard probate filing fees in Travis County typically run between approximately $300 and $500, depending on whether you are filing a will, an application for administration, or another instrument. The Probate Clerk publishes a current fee schedule.
Do I have to use a probate attorney to sell the house?
You do not have to, but in practice you do. The personal representative needs Letters Testamentary to sell, and getting Letters issued requires a probate filing, which functionally requires an attorney. The broker handles the real estate side; the attorney handles the probate side. They are separate roles.
Schedule a consultation
If you are working through a Travis County probate sale and want to talk through your specific situation, schedule a free consultation. We can cover where the case is, what timeline you are looking at, the property’s condition, and what makes sense for the heirs. Phone: (512) 686-3076. Or book online: texasprobaterealestate.com/consultation/.