Well, you can't sever your minerals from the surface in the breach - i.e., not AFTER you've defaulted on your mortgage or taxes, any more than you can keep the back yard and the woodshed when they sell the house and garage. If they weren't severed when the obligation was incurred, then the lienholder acquired an interest in the minerals just as they would have acquired an interest in the woodshed if it was on the property they took a DOT on, and gets them at foreclosure or tax sale.
Also, an NPRI burdens the mineral estate it pays out of, and follows the ownership of that interest, but it isn't lost by the party who owns it if the mineral interest is transferred by deed, descent foreclosure or tax sale.
If you want to keep minerals separate from the surface, you have to sever them when the property is free and clear, or get a release from any lienholder, be that the tax man, the bank, or any judgment creditor that has a valid, recorded claim against the property or its record title owner.
I agree with the first paragraph as it pertains to a foreclosure, and remain skeptical about tax sale, although I do not assert that you are incorrect. I just seem to recall there might be something slightly different about tax sale. I agree with the second paragraph in toto. And I agree with the last paragraph except to say "or do not mortgage the minerals in the first place" (possibly applicable only when the property is free and clear before an instrument of indebtedness is signed).
Pete,
I probably should have clarified that if the minerals are being taxed separately, then they wouldn't pass by tax sale unless the sale had been prosecuted against the minerals specifically. But if they aren't severed, they pass in a tax sale just like the standing timber or the fish in the koi pond.And one absolutely can except un-severed minerals from a deed of trust, if the lender is agreeable. That wouldn't operate to sever the minerals UNLESS there was a conveyance under the power of sale provisions of the DOT.
I don't know where your land is located, but for 15 years Hearne attorneys, James H. McCullough and Brian F. Russ, Jr. acting in conjunction with their primary co-conspirator, District Judge Robert M. Stem, stole and extorted land or mineral interests throughout Robertson County, TX.
When stealing land or mineral interests, Russ and McCullough often use shell companies to create sham transactions. Another scheme commonly employed by these "bottom-scum sucking" scoundrels involved court-santioned extortion.
Case No. 09-cv-1894
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS
HOUSTON DIVISION
Good luck,
Pat