One Morning in Court: How Texas Lets Executors Settle Estates Without a Judge's Permission
Margaret Okonkwo filed a single document with the Collin County Probate Court, appeared before a judge once, and then spent the next six months selling property, paying debts, and distributing assets to her siblings — without ever asking a judge again. Her cousin in Ohio, settling a comparable estate the same year, filed seventeen court documents over twenty-two months. The difference had nothing to do with the families and everything to do with a legal doctrine Texas invented more than a century ago.
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