§ 64.101.Notice and Citation for Receivership for Certain Missing Persons

The notice provision opening the missing person subchapter, and it is designed to reach people rather than a party.

On filing of an application, the clerk shall issue a citation stating that the application was filed and including the name of the missing person and the name of the applicant.

The citation cites all persons interested in the welfare of the missing person to appear for purposes of contesting the application, and shall be posted.

"All persons interested in the welfare" is a wide and unusual class. Not creditors, not heirs, not people with a claim on the estate — anyone concerned for the person.

That reflects what this receivership is for. A missing person may return, and the proceeding is about protecting their property in the meantime rather than distributing it.

Publication is required in three places. On the public information Internet website the Government Code maintains, and in a newspaper of general circulation once in the county where the missing person resides and once in each county where property of the estate is located.

Publishing where the property is, as well as where the person lived, widens the reach considerably — a person who knows the estate may be in a different county from those who knew the person.

The exception for Section 17.032 covers the case where publication is excused under the general citation provisions.

The elaborate notice is the counterweight to what follows. A receiver will take control of an absent person’s entire estate, and the person cannot object because they cannot be found.