My wife and I have just inherited deed to 149.2 acres in Texas. We just paid for a survey and it came back as only 109 acres. The deed includes 50% mineral ownership on 149.2 acres and is leased and a brand new very highly productive gas well just started producing in our pool. My father-in-law purchased the land 1975. From what I can tell a 278 acre tract of land was sold on the back side of the property in 1978 that encroached onto his back 40 acres of land. It is mostly wooded and not fenced even to this day. In the mid 1990s three long skinny land locked tracts that have no access rights were sold on the back side of the 109 acres. They were 2 10 acre tracs and a 3 acre tract that ran all along the back fence and cut his land down to 109 acres.
I know the problem with doing anything about this is, it is all well passed the Texas limit of 25 years for adverse possesion. Probably nothing can be done, but I am no expert on this and think maybe a lawyer could if nothing else tell me where this all went wrong and make sure my understanding of this is correct. As per my limited undestanding the 25 year limit only applys if the adverse possesion has been paying taxes on the land. From waht I can tell, the three tracts on the fence line are all having taxes on them. We /My father-in-law are paying property taxes too so it is being double taxed. But from waht I can tell, the people behind these 3 tracts have possesion to much more land than they have deed to and are not paying taxes on all the land they are in possesion of. Of course this is all based on my own research and limited knowledge. Essentially the people back behind us have free and untaxed land while the land they sold off (our land) is being double taxed.
Could a lawyer do anything about this?
Another concern is if our deed was reduced then would we loose minerals on the 40 acres as well. At the moment the minerals may be worth more than the land. Are we stuck forever paying taxes on 149.2 acres when we only have 109 acres?
You can contact Eric Camp Atty, in Ft Worth. He is also listed in the Directories menu above. He can assess your needs and provide a land man as well. I have used Eric for many things, oil and gas. That, or contact Wade Caldwell in San Antonio, he is also listed above and a great guy. He would have been able to help me with some things had there not been a conflict of interest on a few items. Either will serve you well in Texas.
MK
Great advice.
Mwils51, if you live close by, stopping by in person goes over better than a phone call. When you talk to the Assessor, make sure ya ask them who owned the same 149.2 acres from 1975 and every 10 years after and write them down, they will be able to identify the split within 5 minutes I bet. Then stop by the county clerks office and see if they have any oil and gas leases on file for the area with the names you wrote down. Might be bc Im older but they will always help ya if youre nice and have a “list” of info so they know what to look for.
Thanks All! Those sound like some great recommendations. I do know the people at the county tax office. I will talk to them first and if that doesn’t get me what I need then I will probably call Wade Caldwell.
Surveyors make mistakes all the time. It seems like that there is no fence’s on the land you are referring to. So I don’t think the 25 year rule in Texas is valid. Adverse Possession is a very poor way to try to acquire land in Texas. There was no GPS for surveyors to use back in 1978 in Texas. One surveyor can state the property lines and boundaries and then another can state something totally different. This happens all the time in Texas at the present time. In Texas, currently land cannot be “land locked”. A court order can and will grant an easement. The land you are referring to that was taken from you supposedly didn’t have an easement you stated. By paying property taxes in Texas on land you don’t own doesn’t make it yours, so many times I’ve seen people state that if you pay the taxes for 5 year’s it becomes your’s, If 4 family members own a tract of land and only one pays the taxes that doesn’t make it theirs.