Estate Sale Companies Austin, TX — Liquidator, Buyouts, Cedar Park Downsizing & West Lake Hills

An Austin estate liquidator is a company that clears a home's contents — through a public estate sale, an outright buyout, an auction, or a cleanout — so the family or personal representative is not pricing, staffing, and closing the sale alone. Estate Seller Match takes one free Austin request and sources the job: matching for a public estate sale, a contents buyout, a cleanout, or a full liquidation. That request is the product — describe the house, the city, any hard date, and which method you want. Profiles on this page are self-submitted, not an independent background check, and a listing is not proof a company has already run a sale on your street in Austin or Travis County. Families also ask about Round Rock, Cedar Park, and Westlake; those names are questions to ask a company, not certified service areas. Compare a written public-sale contract with a written buyout offer, ask whether a company has actually worked an address like yours, and confirm who is legally allowed to sign before anything is tagged or hauled. This page is a matching resource, not legal advice and not a law firm.

Not in the Austin area? Browse estate sale companies near me to find your city. If the job is a restaurant, office, retail floor, or warehouse, use Austin business liquidation, Austin restaurant equipment liquidation, or Austin warehouse liquidation — this URL is household contents only. Dallas near-me and Dallas liquidator searches belong on Dallas estate sale companies.

This Austin block is a matching resource for families and personal representatives. It is not legal advice, not tax advice, and Estate Seller Match is not a law firm. Listings below are self-submitted company profiles, not an independent audit, background check, or a promise that a specific liquidator covers your block.

How an Austin or Travis County Estate Actually Gets Liquidated

Most Austin contents jobs start the same way, whether the house is a bungalow in Hyde Park, a condo that cannot host a crowd, or a home the family is emptying before a closing. Someone with authority walks the house. A company proposes one or more methods — a public estate sale, a buyout of the contents, an auction, or a cleanout with no sale. If you hire them, they price or bid the goods, handle (or tell you to handle) any city sale rule, run the event or the pickup, pay you under the contract, and deal with leftovers by donation, a secondary buyer, or a cleanout you pay for separately. The differences that actually matter in Travis County are who is allowed to sign, which city the driveway sits in, and whether the house or HOA will let strangers through the door.

A downsizing or moving sale, where the owner is alive and present, is a contract between that owner and the company. A death-related estate is different. Personal property that was the decedent's usually has to be sold by the person the probate court has appointed, or by a surviving owner who already holds title (for example a joint tenant or a trustee of a funded living trust). The Travis County Clerk's probate FAQ is blunt: while you may represent yourself in some lawsuits, you may not represent others, and under Texas law only a licensed attorney may represent the interests of third-party individuals or entities, including probate estates. If you are an heir who has not been appointed, you generally cannot shop the china cabinet to a liquidator and call it the estate's deal. Ask the probate attorney which document — letters testamentary, letters of administration, a trust certification, or a deed — you should show the company before the walkthrough becomes a contract.

Non-probate paths still need a paper trail. A house and its contents can sit in a living trust, pass by beneficiary designation, or already belong to a surviving spouse as community or joint property. Those facts change who signs, not whether the furniture still has to be priced, advertised, and carried out. A liquidator cannot decide trust versus probate for you. What they can do is refuse to start until the signer matches the documents. That refusal is a feature, not a delay tactic, when the alternative is selling property the signer does not control. For a general primer, see do you need probate before an estate sale — then confirm the Texas rule with counsel.

Travis County Probate Courts: Which Court Hears the Estate, and How to Find the Case

Austin probate is a Travis County matter, not a city court. Travis County publishes two statutory probate courts. The county's probate court page lists Probate Court No. 1 (The Honorable Guy Herman) and Probate Court No. 2 (The Honorable Nicholas Chu). The same page gives the buildings as 200 W. 8th St., Second Floor, Austin, TX 78701, phone (512) 854-9258 for Court No. 1, and 200 W. 8th St., Fourth Floor, Austin, TX 78701, phone (512) 854-5512 for Court No. 2, with a mailing address of P.O. Box 1748, Austin, TX 78767, and published hours of Monday through Friday, 8:00–12:00 and 1:00–5:00. The courts probate wills, declare heirs when there is no will, establish guardianships, supervise court-ordered involuntary mental-health commitments, and administer eminent-domain cases initiated in Travis County. They also hear lawsuits related to a decedent's or ward's estate.

The County Clerk serves as clerk of those courts. The clerk's Probate Division page says the court hears issues associated with the estates of deceased persons, guardianships, mental-health commitments, and eminent domain, and that the division issues citations, writs of execution, abstracts of judgment, letters of guardianship, letters testamentary, protective orders, notices, and other documents required by law or requested by customers. The courts page lists the clerk's probate-division phone as (512) 854-5958 and the email as probate@traviscountytx.gov for filing procedures and court costs, posting and citation, obtaining letters testamentary or letters of guardianship, record searches and copy requests, and e-file status. The clerk's own probate page lists a main phone of (512) 854-9188, postal mail to Travis County Clerk, P.O. Box 149325, Austin, TX 78714, and commercial-carrier delivery to Probate Division, Travis County Clerk, 5501 Airport Boulevard, Austin, TX 78751. The clerk's FAQ gives a walk-in counter at 200 W 8th St #140, Austin, TX 78701, and the clerk website header states Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

To see whether an estate is already on file, the courts page says you can search online probate case data and documents on the Travis County Odyssey Portal, or use re:SearchTX for public court records from Texas courts. E-filing goes through an Electronic Filing Service Provider; the courts page points new filers to efiletexas.gov. The clerk's FAQ says attorneys must e-file, and that a pro se party may also e-file or use mail or the counter. Court staff can tell you how the court works; the staff page says they cannot give legal advice. Inventories, attorneys' fees, and routine applications, that page says, are held at least 10 days before review, so wait at least 11 days before calling the clerk to ask if an order has been signed. For a small-estate affidavit, the same page says to wait at least three weeks. None of that tells you which sale method to pick. It does tell you where the appointment lives, which is the document a careful liquidator will ask to see.

If you possess the will of a deceased person, the clerk's Wills page cites Texas Estates Code § 252.201: on receiving notice of a testator's death, the person who has custody of the will shall deliver it to the clerk of the court that has jurisdiction of the estate. The clerk says there is no filing fee for that deposit. Holding a living person's original will for safekeeping is a different clerk service, for a nominal fee the clerk points to Chapter 252 — that is not an estate-sale method.

A house in Round Rock or Cedar Park is often a Williamson County probate, not a Travis County file. West Lake Hills is a separately incorporated city families ask about. We did not load a Williamson County clerk or probate page this session, so this rewrite does not restate that county's address, judges, or filing rules. Confirm with a Texas probate attorney which county has jurisdiction before you tell a liquidator "the Austin court said we can sell." This site is summarizing published court, clerk, and statute pages. It is not a substitute for a Travis County probate lawyer on your case.

Independent vs. Dependent Administration — What the Statute Actually Says

Texas is unusual in how often estates are handled as independent administrations. Estates Code § 401.002 says that if a will names an executor but does not provide for independent administration, all of the distributees may agree, designate that executor as independent executor, and request that no other action be had in the probate court on the settlement of the estate other than probating and recording the will and returning an inventory, appraisement, and list of claims. The court shall grant that request unless it finds the independent administration would not be in the best interest of the estate. A parallel path exists when no executor can serve. A related provision, § 401.006, lets the court include in the appointment order a power to sell property that the distributees who will receive an interest have consented to, so the independent executor can sell under that order without getting those distributees' further consent for each sale.

Dependent administration is the supervised alternative. Travis County's probate court staff page says one of the courts' strategic goals is to carefully monitor ongoing guardianships and dependent administrations. The clerk, not this website, can tell you what your file's order actually requires. For a contents liquidation, the practical difference is who can sign the estate-sale or buyout contract, and whether the court has to approve the sale first. We are not telling you your estate is independent. Read the order that appointed the personal representative, or have the attorney read it, before you lock a sale weekend or accept a buyout.

Estates Code § 309.051 requires the personal representative, unless a longer period is granted or an affidavit in lieu of inventory under § 309.056 applies, to file a verified, full, and detailed inventory of estate property that has come into the representative's possession or knowledge before the 91st day after qualification. The inventory must include Texas real property and all personal property wherever it is, and must specify separate versus community property. The representative sets out a fair-market-value appraisement as of the date of death, or works with court-appointed appraisers if the court named them. The court may, for good cause, require a shorter deadline. A public estate sale or a buyout is one way a representative learns values; it is not a substitute for whatever inventory or affidavit the court actually requires. Do not assume a liquidator's pricing sheet is the statutory inventory.

Buyout vs. Public Sale vs. Auction

Austin families usually hear three contents methods. They are not ranked, and not every company offers all three. Ask which ones the company actually runs — not which words are on the homepage.

This is a method comparison, not a price list. Proceeds, commissions, and buyout offers are company-specific. A tagged public sale is not the same thing as a live auction. For the method split in more detail, see estate sale vs. auction vs. buyout and estate sale vs. estate liquidation. If only a few pieces are valuable and the rest is ordinary household goods, also read estate sale vs. consignment before you commit to a full-house event.

What Austin Estate Liquidation Costs — Company-Specific, Not a Blended Table

We do not publish a blended Austin or Travis County commission table. Those numbers vary by written contract, and we have not independently verified a metro-wide schedule. Commission on a public sale, the size of a buyout, any minimum fee, and whether cleanout or donation hauling is included are terms you get from a written contract with a specific company. They vary with the mix of goods, the access to the house, how much the company has to do before opening day, and whether the company is taking resale risk on a buyout. We will not repeat a 25–40% figure as if it were an Austin or statewide rate.

Use how much estate sale companies charge and the estate sale company contract checklist for the questions that belong in every contract: the percentage or the lump sum, what is excluded, when you are paid, who pays credit-card fees, and what happens to unsold items. If two Austin companies quote different structures — a lower percentage with a high minimum, versus a higher percentage that includes cleanout — compare the whole page, not the headline rate. Do not sign from a walkthrough conversation.

Neighborhood and Service-Radius Questions — Not a Coverage Map

Austin is a set of neighborhoods and nearby cities that do not share one buyer list or one permit office. Treat these names as questions to ask, not as streets we have staffed for you.

• • Coverage we will talk about as the house's likely city and county is Austin and Travis County. A listing that says Austin is the company's own statement — it is not proof the company has staffed a sale in your ZIP.
• • Hyde Park, Tarrytown, Clarksville, Zilker, East Austin, and Mueller are Austin neighborhoods families ask about. Housing stock, parking, and HOA or condo rules differ. Ask how the company handles line control, load-out, and neighbors if the sale draws a crowd, and whether a gate changes the plan.
• • Round Rock, Cedar Park, and Westlake (West Lake Hills) are separately incorporated cities that families ask about. They are not certified service areas on this page. A Round Rock or Cedar Park house is often a Williamson County probate file. Ask whether the company treats that drive as regular work or as a one-off, and which city's sale rules it will follow.
• • Downtown and condo buildings often cannot host the public. Say so on the form. A buyout or a private pickup is a different contract from a weekend tag sale.

We do not claim that Estate Seller Match has a company in Hyde Park, on South Congress, or in any named subdivision. If a profile lists "Austin" as a service area, that is the company's own statement. Verify it. Do not treat a sample profile as a named company already booked for that block.

Cedar Park Downsizing Sale Services and the Williamson County Probate Gap

Cedar Park and Round Rock sit mostly in Williamson County, not Travis County, and that distinction matters for two different searches families run: downsizing sale services for a living owner moving to a smaller home, and probate for a death-related estate. A downsizing sale uses the same public tagged-sale mechanics as an estate sale — pricing, staging, advertising, staffing sale days — but the contract is with the living owner (or their agent under a valid power of attorney), not with an executor or administrator. Ask a Cedar Park downsizing company whether it has actually staffed a sale in Williamson County or only advertises "Austin area" coverage, and get the commission or fee in writing before the first box is packed.

Cedar Park's own population-estimates document puts the city in the high-70,000s to roughly 80,000 residents in the most recent count, up more than 70% since 2010, with a median age in the mid-30s — a fast-growing, comparatively young suburb rather than a retiree-heavy one. That backs up what we see in downsizing sale requests: a large share are living owners relocating for work, a smaller house, or a move closer to family, not a probate estate. The paperwork and the signer are different in each case, so say which one it is on the request rather than letting a company assume. Submit a Cedar Park downsizing or estate sale request and we'll route it to companies who actually cover Williamson County, not just the Austin address.

When the Cedar Park or Round Rock job is death-related instead, the probate file is usually Williamson County's, not Travis County's. Williamson County's probate matters are handled through Court at Law Four, and the County Clerk's Probate/Civil Division processes the filings from the second floor of the Williamson County Justice Center, 405 MLK, Georgetown, TX 78626 (512-943-1140, Monday–Friday 8:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m., open through lunch). As in Travis County, Williamson County's own pro se policy states that individuals applying for letters testamentary, letters of administration, determinations of heirship, or guardianship must be represented by a licensed attorney — those filings cannot be self-filed. Case records can be searched through the county's online judicial-records portal. If a liquidator tells a Cedar Park family "the Austin court" issued the appointment, that is a red flag worth double-checking against the Georgetown clerk's office.

West Lake Hills families sometimes search for an "estate sale agent" — a phrase that mixes two different jobs. A real estate agent is TREC-licensed to handle the sale of the house itself; an estate sale agent, in the industry-common sense, means whoever prices and runs the sale of the house's contents, which is not a TREC-licensed activity (see "Does Texas License Estate Sale Companies" below). If a West Lake Hills search also turns up business liquidation — clearing a home office, a small storefront, or a business inventory rather than household goods — that is a commercial job, not this page's household matching: use Austin business liquidation and put the West Lake Hills address on that request instead.

Austin-Area Suburbs at a Glance: County and What Each Search Usually Means

Families searching for downsizing sales, an estate sale agent, or business liquidation in a specific Austin-area suburb are usually asking two things at once: which county handles the paperwork, and which of our pages actually matches that job. This table is a reference, not a coverage map — a company still has to confirm it has worked your street.

West Lake Hills being in Travis County — not Williamson County — is the one fact families most often get wrong when comparing it to Cedar Park or Round Rock. It means the same Travis County probate courts covered above generally apply. It does not mean a specific company has already worked that address. For a business or commercial job anywhere on this list, use Austin business liquidation instead of this household page.

Permits: City of Austin — And What We Could Not Verify

We did not find a City of Austin official page titled garage-sale permit or estate-sale permit. The city's Small Business Permitting page lists site plan, demolition, sign, mobile retail, alcoholic-beverage, fire, water, commercial-building, and environmental permits. It does not list a garage-sale or estate-sale application. For residential tours and garage sales, that page points to Land Development Code §§ 25-2-902 and 25-2-903. We are not inventing an Austin estate-sale permit, and we are not inventing a city policy that no rule ever applies.

The city's posted current-code extract of § 25-2-903 says a garage sale is allowed as an accessory residential use. A garage sale includes yard sales, carport sales, or similar types of sales involving the sale of used or secondhand tangible property customarily found at a residence, and the production and incidental sale of artwork by the person who made it. The sale must be conducted entirely on a property used as the seller's principal residence. A garage sale may not be held at the same property more than four days per calendar year, or at a property participating in a residential tour under § 25-2-902. The official text we read does not use the words estate sale. Ask the company, in writing, whether it treats a public estate sale as a similar-type sale under that section, whose name is on any notice, and whether a decedent's house the personal representative does not live in still meets the "seller's principal residence" test — that last question is for the city or counsel, not for a matching website.

Austin Development Services' Common Code Violations page and Spring Cleaning page repeat the four-day limit and say more than four garage sales per calendar year is a violation of city code and is considered a home-based business. Those pages also say garage-sale signs may be posted on the property where the sale is occurring for no more than three consecutive days. The signs section says you may not post a sign in the right-of-way or on public property, and that off-premise signs are prohibited: a garage-sale sign can only be placed where the sale is taking place. Code Connect is listed at 512-974-2633 for questions; suspected violations go to Austin 3-1-1.

A buyout or a private pickup with no public sale is a different activity from a garage sale. HOA and condo rules are separate from the city code and can block a public sale even when zoning would allow one.

Round Rock, Cedar Park, and West Lake Hills are other cities. We fetched Round Rock's official Code Enforcement page: it says the sale of personal belongings from one's residence is permitted once every six months, that more frequent sales constitute a resale shop, and that signs and flyers may not be posted in the right-of-way, on street lights, or other public property. That is a Round Rock rule, not an Austin rule, and it is not a coverage promise. For Cedar Park we identified official permit and common-violations pages; we did not find a current official page titled garage-sale permit or estate-sale permit, so we are not quoting a Cedar Park sale-day limit. For West Lake Hills we did not find a current official page titled garage-sale permit or estate-sale permit; a garagekeeper's fee on that city's fee schedule is not a residential estate-sale permit. Do not assume Austin's four-day accessory-use rule applies in those cities. For the general permit question, see do you need a permit for an estate sale — then use the official page that actually applies to the driveway.

Sales Tax on a Texas Estate Sale

The Texas Comptroller's publication Garage Sales and Occasional Sales (94-437, 09/2020) says Texas sales tax is normally due when you sell tangible personal property — clothing, furniture, books, toys, and similar goods. An individual who does not have and is not required to have a sales-tax permit may qualify for an occasional-sales exemption if they make two or fewer sales in a consecutive 12-month period, or if they sell items originally bought for personal or family use and total receipts from those sales do not exceed $3,000 in a calendar year. You do not qualify for that individual exemption if you have or are required to have a Texas sales-and-use-tax permit, if you are engaged in business selling taxable items, or if you buy items to resell. A company that is in the business of running estate sales is not the same as a family holding one garage sale. Ask any Austin liquidator, in writing, who collects and remits sales tax on a public sale, and whether tax is added on top of tagged prices or included. We are not telling you a professional sale is tax-free.

Does Texas License Estate Sale Companies?

The dedicated TDLR Auctioneers page loaded this session and states that auctioneers who conduct auctions by live, in-person bidding are licensed, and that internet auctions are exempt from that license requirement unless there is a live-bid component. TDLR's Auctioneers FAQ, also fetched this session, says House Bill 2481 clarified that an auctioneer license is only needed to conduct live-bid auctions. The TDLR programs-list page extract this session was incomplete — Auctioneers did not appear in the converted body — so we are not quoting a full program inventory from that extract. We did not find a TDLR program titled estate sale company, estate liquidator, or estate sale on the Auctioneers pages we read.

TREC's homepage, fetched this session, lists licensing for real-estate sales agents, individual and business-entity brokers, easement or right-of-way agents and businesses, inspectors (apprentice, real estate, professional), education providers, timeshare plans, and a License Holder Search. It does not list a household estate-sale or estate-liquidator license. A TREC license is not a contents-liquidation license. If someone claims they are "state licensed" as an estate sale company, ask which agency and which license number, then look it up. For a live in-person auction, the license to check is the auctioneer's TDLR record. For a tagged house sale, there is no statewide estate-sale-company license on the lists we read.

Questions to Ask an Austin Estate Liquidator

• • Who signs the contract — owner, independent executor, dependent administrator (with a court order), trustee — and what document will you copy into the file?
• • Have you run a sale at an address like this one (Austin, a Travis County address, or a nearby city we asked you about) in the last year? Who staffed it?
• • Which method are you proposing, and will you also put the alternative in writing (sale vs. buyout vs. auction vs. cleanout)?
• • What is the commission or the buyout number, the minimum, credit-card fees, and the cleanout or donation charge if anything remains?
• • Do you treat a public estate sale as a § 25-2-903 garage sale or similar-type sale, and whose name is on any notice?
• • Who collects sales tax, and is it added to tagged prices?
• • If any part of the job is a live in-person auction, what is the auctioneer's TDLR license number?
• • What insurance do you carry for public sale days, and will you send the certificate before we sign?
• • What happens to unsold items, and on what day is the house broom-clean?
• • When are proceeds paid, and to which estate or trust account?

Red Flags When You Compare Austin Liquidators

• • A company that will not put commission, buyout price, minimums, tax handling, and unsold-item terms in writing before you commit
• • Pressure to sign the same day, before a second written proposal or before the executor's attorney has seen the draft
• • "We cover Austin" or "we cover Central Texas" with no named sale they will let you verify in your city
• • A claim that Texas "licenses estate sale companies" without an agency and a license number you can search
• • A walkthrough number presented as the inventory the probate court requires
• • No answer on whether a public sale at this address is treated as a § 25-2-903 garage sale, or on a condo or HOA rule that would block shoppers

For a longer list of hiring traps, see how to avoid estate sale scams. A matching directory is a shortlist, not a substitute for that checklist.

How Matching Works on This Page

Submit one free request with the city, the reason for the sale, any hard date (closing, lease end, travel), and a short description of the house. Say whether you want a public estate sale, a contents buyout, a live or online auction, an estate cleanout, or a full liquidation that includes leftover haul-out. That request is a real lead Estate Seller Match sources — matching, buyout, cleanout, and liquidation are the product. The cards on this page show what companies entered on their own profiles: service area, specialties, and any commission range they chose to publish. A claimed or verified mark means the company has claimed the profile. It does not mean we inspected its insurance file, checked a TDLR auctioneer license, or confirmed a sale in your neighborhood.

Response time after we pass the request is the company's. Companies often advertise that they can schedule a first look on short notice; that is marketplace language, not a walkthrough date from us. Ask for the first available walkthrough date in writing. We will not invent a company name, a 555 number, or a claim that a specific provider is already booked for your block. We will work the request.

Estate Sale Companies, Estate Liquidation, and Estate Liquidator — Austin Queries This URL Owns

If you searched for estate sale companies Austin TX, estate liquidation Austin, or estate liquidator Austin, this companies URL is the local matching page for those queries. Use the form on this page when the house is in Austin or a nearby city you want a Travis County liquidator to drive to. Ask the coverage question as a radius and a track record: how far will you travel, and when did you last run a sale in this ZIP? This page does not own estate liquidation companies near me — that Dallas URL already ranks for it, so use Dallas estate sale companies for a Dallas near-me or Dallas liquidator search. It does not own Dallas estate-sale queries, Raleigh estate-sale or Raleigh business-liquidation queries, Charlotte estate-sale queries, or Scottsdale retail-specialist queries. If you searched Austin business liquidation, restaurant equipment, or warehouse work, those commercial URLs already exist. If you are not in this area, go to the estate sale companies near me index and pick the city that matches the house. Do not treat an Austin liquidator page as a statewide directory, and do not treat it as a Dallas near-me page.

What to Put in an Austin Matching, Buyout, Cleanout, or Liquidation Request

The form on this page is the request Estate Seller Match works. Fill it as if you are sending a job to a company you will actually hire. The more specific the request, the faster a liquidator, buyout buyer, or public-sale company can decide whether the house is a walkthrough they can staff.

• • City and ZIP of the house — Austin, a Travis County address, or another city you want an Austin-area liquidator to drive to — not just "Austin metro."
• • Why the contents have to move: death and probate, downsizing, a real-estate closing, a lease end, or an out-of-state executor who cannot run a sale weekend. If the executor lives out of state, also read estate sale when the executor lives out of state.
• • The hard date, if there is one (closing, lockbox change, travel). That is the fact that usually decides buyout versus a public sale.
• • Which method you want sourced: public estate sale, lump-sum buyout, auction, estate cleanout, or a full liquidation that includes leftover haul-out. You can ask for more than one written proposal.
• • Who will sign — owner, independent executor, dependent administrator (and whether a court order is in hand), or trustee — and which county the probate file is in, if there is one.
• • A short contents note: ordinary household goods, a house that is still fully furnished, or categories that often need a separate plan (vehicles, firearms, jewelry). Do not send account numbers or a full inventory on the first form.
• • Access facts that change staffing: HOA or gate, condo elevator, no driveway, or a house that cannot host the public.

If the assets are a restaurant, office, retail floor, or warehouse instead of a household, use the Austin business liquidation page, Austin restaurant equipment liquidation, or Austin warehouse liquidation. Household estate liquidators and commercial liquidators are different jobs. Everything we publish for this city is indexed on the Austin services hub.

Sources (fetched 2026-08-21, Williamson County added 2026-08-30, West Lake Hills county fact added 2026-09-11, Cedar Park population data added 2026-09-21)

• • City of Cedar Park, Population Estimates and Forecasts (PDF) — city population in the high-70,000s to roughly 80,000 in the most recent estimate, up more than 70% since the 2010 Census: cedarparktexas.gov/DocumentCenter/View/1849/Population-Estimates-and-Forecasts-PDF
• • Texas State Historical Association, Handbook of Texas — West Lake Hills: incorporated 1953, located on the west side of Lake Austin about six miles west of downtown Austin, in Travis County: tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/west-lake-hills-tx
• • Williamson County, TX — Probate (Court at Law Four handles probate matters): wilcotx.gov/447/Probate
• • Williamson County Clerk, Probate/Civil Division — 405 MLK, 2nd Floor, Williamson County Justice Center, Georgetown, TX 78626; phone 512-943-1140; hours M–F 8:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m., open through lunch; pro se policy requires a licensed attorney for letters testamentary, letters of administration, determinations of heirship, and guardianship filings: wilcotx.gov/1624/Probate-Civil-Division
• • Travis County Probate Courts — Probate Court No. 1 (Judge Guy Herman), Probate Court No. 2 (Judge Nicholas Chu); 200 W. 8th St., Austin, TX 78701; mailing P.O. Box 1748, Austin, TX 78767; hours M–F 8:00–12:00 and 1:00–5:00: traviscountytx.gov/probate
• • Travis County Probate Court staff — court staff cannot give legal advice; clerk handles letters testamentary, filing, copies; inventories held at least 10 days before review; small-estate affidavit wait at least 3 weeks: traviscountytx.gov/probate/court-staff
• • Travis County Clerk, Probate Division — clerk of the probate court; issues letters testamentary; postal P.O. Box 149325, Austin, TX 78714; commercial carrier 5501 Airport Boulevard, Austin, TX 78751; main phone (512) 854-9188: countyclerk.traviscountytx.gov/departments/probate
• • Travis County Clerk, Probate FAQ — only a licensed attorney may represent third parties including probate estates; hearing number (512) 854-9258; counter 200 W 8th St #140; e-file at efiletexas.gov: countyclerk.traviscountytx.gov/departments/probate/probate-faq
• • Travis County Clerk, Wills — Estates Code § 252.201 deposit of a decedent's will with the clerk; no fee for that deposit; living-will safekeeping is a separate Chapter 252 service: countyclerk.traviscountytx.gov/departments/probate/wills
• • Texas Estates Code § 401.002 (independent administration by agreement of distributees) and § 401.006 (power of sale by agreement), official posting statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/ES/htm/ES.401.htm; live capitol.texas.gov body timed out this session; text read via the official-source reprint at texas.public.law § 401.002 and § 401.006
• • Texas Estates Code § 309.051 (inventory and appraisement before the 91st day after qualification, unless extended or an affidavit in lieu applies): official posting statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/ES/htm/ES.309.htm#309.051; live capitol.texas.gov body timed out this session; text read via texas.public.law § 309.051
• • Texas Comptroller Publication 94-437, Garage Sales and Occasional Sales (09/2020): comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/publications/94-437.php
• • City of Austin Land Development Code § 25-2-903 (Garage Sales) on the city's posted current-code extract — accessory use; yard/carport/similar sales; seller's principal residence; four days per calendar year: austintexas.gov/edims/document.cfm?id=246534
• • City of Austin, Common Austin Code Violations — four-day garage-sale limit; more than four treated as a home-based business; on-premise signs no more than three consecutive days; off-premise signs prohibited; Code Connect 512-974-2633: austintexas.gov/development-services/common-austin-code-violations
• • City of Austin, Spring Cleaning — more than four garage sales per calendar year is a code violation and a home-based business; signs on the sale property no more than three consecutive days: austintexas.gov/development-services/spring-cleaning
• • City of Austin, Small Business Permitting — points to §§ 25-2-902 and 25-2-903 for tours and garage sales; permit-types list we read has no garage-sale or estate-sale application: austintexas.gov/development-services/small-business-permitting
• • We did not find a City of Austin official page titled garage-sale permit or estate-sale permit this session, and we did not find a city application portal for those sales.
• • TDLR Auctioneers — live in-person bidding licensed; internet auctions exempt unless a live-bid component: tdlr.texas.gov/auc
• • TDLR Auctioneers FAQ — license only needed to conduct live-bid auctions: tdlr.texas.gov/auc/aucfaq.htm
• • TDLR, Programs Licensed and Regulated — official URL identified; converted body this session was incomplete (Auctioneers did not appear in the extract), so no full program inventory is quoted from that page: tdlr.texas.gov/licenses.htm
• • TREC homepage, fetched 2026-08-21 — licensing menus list Sales Agent, Individual Real Estate Broker, Business Entity Real Estate Broker, Easement or Right-of-Way Agent, Easement or Right-of-Way Business, Inspectors (Apprentice, Real Estate, Professional), Education Providers, Timeshare Plans, and a License Holder Search. No estate-sale-company or estate-liquidator license is listed. We did not load a live license-holder search results page and are not restating fees or education hours: trec.texas.gov
• • City of Round Rock Code Enforcement — sale of personal belongings from a residence permitted once every six months; more frequent sales constitute a resale shop. Cited only as a separate-city rule families ask about, not as Austin coverage: roundrocktexas.gov … code-enforcement
• • City of Cedar Park and City of West Lake Hills — official sites identified; no current official page titled garage-sale permit or estate-sale permit was verified for each city this session. No Cedar Park or West Lake Hills sale rule is quoted as if it were Austin's code.
• • Williamson County Clerk / Probate — official pages not loaded this session. No Williamson County address, judge, or filing rule is quoted.

If It's a Business, Not a Household, in Austin

Estate sale companies are built around household contents. A closing restaurant, a vacated office, or a warehouse full of racking needs a commercial liquidator instead, and the two rarely overlap. Estates that include a small business fall somewhere in between, so it is worth reading both sides before you call anyone. Everything we cover in Austin is indexed on the Austin services hub.

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