Property Taxes owed by a Texas mineral rights holder?

[Beartracks]

My spouse holds a tiny piece of mineral rights on some land in Texas. This passed to her (and dozens and dozens of other family descendants, passed down over 2-3 generations) maybe 10 years ago. We've just received a Notice of Tax Lien showing we still owe property taxes for last year. The law firm sending the notice represents : a) the county; b) the county Underground Water District; and c) the county Independent School District.

The interesting thing is that we don't recall ever having had to pay property taxes over the last 10 years. Someone else owns the actual property at ground level; my spouse's family members own mineral rights underground. If some oil/gas company were to ever drill on this land, they would have to execute a lease with the actual property owners, and then pay a few pennies to us based on whatever gets extracted to the surface.

Can anyone in Texas tell me if a mineral rights holder paying property taxes is normal? And if so, why haven't we been hit up for these taxes for the last 10 years?

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[DURHAM D]

1. Some states charge taxes on non-producing property

but apparently Texas does not. Google it.

[Beartracks]

4. I should have noted there are a couple of active leases on the land...

... but they are not, apparently, drilling or extracting anything. I think they did test wells, and then stopped.

Did you do a quick google and find that? I just keep coming up with the text of the tax laws, which has not proven helpful, unfortunately.

But my question is more to the property taxes themselves. I would've thought property taxes supporting utilities and school districts would be what the SURFACE property owner pays, not the folks who hold an interest in the minerals underneath. And I guess I'm only thinking that because we went 10 years without a mention to us about owing property taxes.

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[DURHAM D]

5. Have you been to the property lately?

Maybe there is a producing well? Is there a salt water disposal well?

[Beartracks]

9. We're out of state, so no. And Google maps' out-of-date imagery doesn't show anything helpful.

I suppose it's possible there's some activity like a sink well, but nothing producing oil or gas, since we've seen barely a few bucks in royalties over the years.

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[ret5hd]

2. who says the law firm represents a, b, and c???

a, b, and c or the “law firm”?

just asking because i smell a potential scam.

[Beartracks]

8. Hadn't thought about that. But nothing about the doc rings as scammy to me. Plus...

... it's less than $15.00. And payment is supposed to go to the county tax office.

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[Kali]

3. contact the relevant county assessor

some info may be on line - even my rural county has lots of info on individual lots/tax payments etc.

[pat_k]

6. Yes.

Looking at a random county, Tarrant, it doesn't sound like anything is taxable until production of some kind is happening, but I could be reading this wrong:
https://www.tarrantcountytx.gov/en/tax/property-tax/FAQs-Property-Tax.html#:~:text=Mineral%20interests%20are%20defined%20by,as%20all%20other%20real%20property.

In any case, I would contact relevant county tax assessor collectors office. This does sound a little scamy. Seems to me that tax bills would have come from the tax assessor long before any lien would be filed.

[Beartracks]

10. Good idea. I'll have my spouse do that.

But I will check online first, too.

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[slightlv]

7. We've got a free-for-all going with Texas

over Mineral Rights/Property Tax, too. From what we've been told, if you own the land you're responsible for property tax. If you only own the mineral rights (and not the land), then you declare the mineral rights profit on income tax form but you do not owe property tax.

Hubby sold his rights a few years back when we were trying to buy a house, and they're STILL trying to ding us for property taxes, although we never, ever owned the land. Texas is screwed up... totally, in my mind. And, since we live in KS, it's a little difficult to "go down" to the courthouse and hash it out with someone! (I'd probably end up in jail lambasting their sense of logic, to boot!).

Oh, this is in Bexar County, I believe.

[Beartracks]

11. This does sound like our situation, as mineral rights owners and not land owners.

I guess we will have to call down there.

You said "From what we've been told..." Who was doing the telling?

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[slightlv]

12. Talking to several people.

Not trusting one person only... so we've called the courthouse, we've called the mineral rights lawyer, and we've talked to a lawyer up here where we are now. What makes our situation so ridiculous is not only did we not own the land, we sold the damned mineral rights nearly 10 years ago!

Which just tells me there's some "ghost" who's making out like a billionaire bandit on phony documents. But, I'm very cynical.