but apparently Texas does not. Google it.

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

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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a, b, and c or the “law firm”?

just asking because i smell a potential scam.

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

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

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.

But I will check online first, too.

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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.

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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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.