I would like to know if anybody else has had the below described problem and if we have any protection to prevent it.
A judge declared that $15 in taxes was owed on royalty on our property. That is interesting since no drilling has ever been done in the 100 years our family has owned the mineral rights and no minerals have ever been taken. The sheriff posted the tax notice in the courthouse and the mineral rights were sold at auction for $15 to a man in Midland that just happened to be on courthouse steps at the proper time. The mineral rights were sold to Exxon before anybody in my family of 20 cousins knew about it. If Exxon only used the lease that the rest of the family got they would have received $250 five years ago and $550 most recently.
Talking to people in the courthouse indicates this is not the first time this has happened.
Sounds like a racket to me! But I have no experience nor heard of anything similar. But if legit, I sense a business model formulating…hmmm…
Good luck. You may likely need to consult a lawyer to see if you can somehow recover your mineral rights.
I take it you didn’t receive notice of taxes due or did not pay and you never received notice of the tax sale and that you checked with the county and they do have record of why you owed $15 in taxes on non-existing producing wells?
What county is this?
In Texas there is a redemption period (I think 5 yrs).
Check out this link regarding Texas Tax Code: aw.onecle.com/texas/tax/34.21.00.html
Talk about rackets …
www.courthousenews.com
Case No. 09-cv-1894 is about Robertson County defendants Russ and McCullough (R&M) acting in conjunction with their primary co-conspirator, district judge Robert M. Stem, extorting money and stealing land and mineral interest for more than 15 years in Robertson County.
R&M often used shell companies to create sham transactions where company A purports to transfer its land or mineral interests to company B even though company A never owned the land or mineral interest in the first place. R&M, acting through The Firm, then seek a declaratory judgment that company B owns the land or mineral interest. Judge Stem grants R&M permission to serve notice on the allegedly undetermined owners by publication in local newspapers.
After actual owners fail to respond, Stem at the behest of R&M appoints D. Harris as attorney ad litem, ostensibly to represent the interests of the ACTUAL landowners.
On the same day he is appointed, D. Harris declares that he cannot locate the actual owners (even though most of them are readily identifiable) and Stem appoints Nestor Leamon as receiver to sell the property. Leamon then sells the property to R&M at prices far below market value and the proceeds are put into the registry of the court. If the actual owners fail to claim the money within 7 years, Stem gives it back to shell company B, i.e. back to R&M.
You can read more details about various fraud and extortion practices these and other crooks employ with people’s land and mineral interests Case No. 09-cv-1894.
Good luck.
If I were you, I think I would go by the judge’s office on the way to my lawyer’s office and pee on his leg.
After reading what happened to Bill I called Gregg County about my mineral interest that I get royalties from and to see why for the 3rd time over 3 years that I have not received a tax bill yet. Nobody seems to know anything about what’s going on there and you Texans sure have a funny way of doing business. That is a mess and should be called Rube Goldberg way of conducting business. I was told to call one office after another and then was told it is my responsibility to report the change of ownership (which I had already done twice and was told each time they’d pick it up and just wait) to the correct office and to do their job in making certain I was billed. Between that and some of the legal descriptions, it’s surprising you people can function properly. Who in their right mind would give a legal description as “from the big tan rock to the oak tree then over to the dead rabbit and back to the big tan rock.” Abstract number, survey names, survey numbers, blocks, sections, place names, does anything have square dimensions or were they all on peyote there and they couldn’t see straight lines.
I’d like to watch someone pee on a judge’s leg. There is one here that I’d pay to see that happen to.
Reeves County
Mineral Joe said:
I take it you didn’t receive notice of taxes due or did not pay and you never received notice of the tax sale and that you checked with the County and they do have record of why you owed $15 in taxes on non-existing producing wells?
What County is this?
I have a property that I discovered someone quieted the title on in the county my family has lived in for over 100 years. They went to the other side of the county where the property was located and did their public notice in the smallest town in the county in their newspaper whose circulation is maybe 20 people. This was after they couldn’t find any of the owners. We have had the same address since 1939, and we are the only people in the county with our name. It was really unusual as one of the mineral owners was the President of the bank in the biggest city in the county and they couldn’t find him either.
Lance,
I believe in Texas, as it is in Oklahoma, that they can only quiet title that which is theirs; they cannot take what is yours unless title is unclear as to owner and interest.
If your mailing address was on the deed or conveyance, they would have had to attempt to contact you also via mail in most states. Texas is maybe different though, as Texas is like backwoods. In most states, they must have made attempts to locate you like via telephone (most have cell phones nowadays with no way to obtain the telephone number) or you can go to court and get your minerals back. It is well known amongst attorneys to advertise in far reaches from eyes that could see; my attorney advised the same.
Jason, I am still trying to work out a strategy on it. I am thinking of filing an affidavit of ownership on it. Then lease the property in my name from the grandparents’ trust who owns it. Then when the oil companies finally get to drilling in the part of the county it is located in, see what happens?
Mineral Joe, I doubt they seriously tried to contact anybody the way they went about this. Especially with all of the well-known names in the area that were mineral owners. I am surprised someone in the District Court at the time did not say “I eat breakfast every morning at the diner with half the people on this petition.”
Lance,
Like I said, unless there is an issue with percentage of ownership or interest they own, they cannot take or quiet title what could not be theirs through title. I say that, but there is a law in Oklahoma where they can gain title through forcing the interest to go through auction but not gain ownership through quiet title. You’re in Texas, the best person to ask is Buddy Cotten.
I have wondered if the Texas Rangers would investigate such a thing.
Looks like a number of people have had this problem. Anyone online who can address how to protect oneself? Of course, for these folks it looks like they need a lawyer, but for the rest of us… how to protect yourself from these cheats.
Sounds like this has become a way of getting people’s minerals for nothing. I had a similar thing happen and it cost me lots of money and almost a lawsuit. Someone may have owned some minerals in the section, so they filed a blanket filing stating they owned all the minerals in the section. I was checking my legal and found it. Then found out the person had sold it to a company in Colorado who purchases minerals. They didn’t want to talk to me and weren’t nice at all. They told me I didn’t even know what I was talking about. But, they sold my minerals really fast to some other people in Houston, Texas. So, after several months, big attorney fees, I am finally getting them to sign off with a Q T. So, people go to your county clerk’s office and check what is filed on your land and minerals. Don’t assume that all the records are right.
Also, in Texas, unless you have production, you don’t pay any tax on minerals. But, once you get production you will pay tax or they will take it.
Sounds similar to something that happened with the estate of my wife’s deceased parents in western Kansas. Some portion of mineral rights had been retained when property was sold a couple of generations earlier and the descendants lost track of it. We heard about it by accident when the present owner of the property did a title search and asked to buy the mineral rights. When we checked at the courthouse one of the large oil companies had already initiated proceedings under an obscure statute to take over the mineral rights. By paying back taxes we were able to establish the estate’s rights and no more was heard about it.
The redemption period in Texas is six months for non-homesteaded and two years for homesteaded property rights sold at sheriff’s sale.
If the sale was valid, you’d owe 25% interest for the first year, and another 25% for the second year.
Just file a motion and affidavit in the Tax Court setting out your redemption rights and tender the appropriate funds.
And pay your property taxes in the future.