A complex estate is one where the assets are hard to value, divide, or transfer, and where the people inheriting them disagree about how. In a Bexar County estate like that, the key decisions are about control and timing.
Size alone is not the test. A large portfolio split evenly between two siblings who get along is a routine administration. These features change how an estate has to be handled:
One of these makes an estate difficult. Several of them usually mean litigation from the start.
In much of Texas, a dispute over title to land requires a separate lawsuit in a different court. Bexar County is different. Gov’t Code 25.0173(a) gives all three of the county’s statutory probate courts eminent domain jurisdiction and jurisdiction to decide the issue of title to real or personal property.
For an estate holding a ranch, a commercial building, or mineral leases, the question of whether the decedent owned the property can be tried before the judge already handling the estate, with one record, one discovery schedule, and one trial setting.
Tex. Gov’t Code 25.0173(a). Bexar County has three statutory probate courts under Gov’t Code 25.0171(c).
The same point carries over to trusts. Estates Code 32.006 gives a statutory probate court jurisdiction over an action by or against a trustee and over actions involving an inter vivos, testamentary, or charitable trust. Property Code 115.001(a) would normally put trust proceedings in district court, but 115.001(d)(1) excepts a statutory probate court. Because Bexar County has three statutory probate courts, the estate dispute and a related trust dispute can be heard together.
Estates Code 32.006; Property Code 115.001(a) and 115.001(d)(1).
Land is harder to divide than a bank account. When a parent dies owning acreage, the children often become co-owners, each holding an undivided interest in the whole tract. One may want to sell while another wants to keep running cattle. Mineral interests add complexity, because the surface and minerals can be owned separately and lease income keeps coming in during the dispute.
Partition under Property Code 23.001 and 23.002 is the usual remedy. Where the land qualifies as heirs’ property, the Texas Uniform Partition of Heirs’ Property Act applies instead, and Sections 23A.002, 23A.006, and 23A.007 give co-owners who want to keep the land a right to buy out a co-owner who asks for a sale.
These cases usually turn on valuation. A private company has no market price, so its value depends on expert testimony the judge accepts. Two qualified appraisers can reach very different numbers from the same books because they treat goodwill, minority discounts, and marketability differently, and that difference is often what gets litigated.
Service, depositions, and mediation all cost more when the parties live in different states, and one heir who cannot be located can hold up a distribution.
Estates Code 202.005 requires the heirship application to state each heir’s name, relationship, true interest, and the address where service can be had. Estates Code 202.008 requires that all heirs be made parties. Estates Code 202.009(a) says the court shall appoint an attorney ad litem for heirs whose names or locations are unknown. The appointment is mandatory.
A multi-year administration with a contested valuation can be delayed by a judge’s illness, a conflict, or a crowded docket.
Gov’t Code 25.0173(p) allows the Bexar statutory probate judges to sit and act for each other in any probate matter. The Bexar County probate courts’ local rules, approved September 25, 2026, add that Rule 1.3(b) states that no formal appointment order is necessary, and Rule 1.3(d) lets them transfer cases between themselves for docket equalization.
Tex. Gov’t Code 25.0173(p); Bexar County probate courts’ local rules approved September 25, 2026, Rules 1.3(b) and 1.3(d).
Judge Oscar J. Kazen sits in Probate Court No. 1 at 100 Dolorosa, Room 117; Judge Veronica Vasquez in Court No. 2, Room 123; Judge Barbie Scharf-Zeldes in Court No. 3, Suite 1.20. For a case that may last years, having three courts in one building that can cover for each other helps keep it moving.
In a large estate, the biggest losses usually come from delay, an inventory that undervalues a business, a title problem nobody caught, or a settlement accepted because no one was ready for trial.
Good judgment about which disputes are worth pursuing matters more than any single filing. This firm has handled 500+ estates. That experience shows in decisions like not filing a motion that will only irritate the court, or recognizing early that a case should be resolved at mediation.
We do not handle muniment of title, small estate affidavits, affidavits of heirship, simple wills, or routine uncontested administration. Another firm can handle that work for less.
We take matters where the amount in dispute justifies the cost of litigation.
If the estate involves a business, land, mineral interests, or heirs in more than one state, call us early, before positions harden.
The first consultation is short and free.