Articles Posted in Land Titles

Eileen McKenzie Fowler was a lawyer in LaPorte, Texas, until her resignation in lieu of disciplinary action was accepted by the Texas Supreme Court in April of last year following complaints against her. Her resignation reminded me of a post I did several years ago about the Texas Unclaimed Mineral Proceeds Commission.

Descendants of Spanish and Mexican land grants in Texas have long believed that, as descendants, they must be entitled to escheated royalties attributable to production from the grants made to their ancestors. In 2013 the legislature passed House Bill 724, creating the Texas Unclaimed Mineral Proceeds Commission, charging it to study and provide recommendations regarding distribution of unclaimed royalties held in Texas unclaimed property fund. The legislation was in response to these claims by these descendants. The Commission met eight times and took voluminous testimony, producing a 100-page report.

The report of the commission spends a good deal of time discussing the testimony and claims of Eileen McKenzie Fowler. Ms. Fowler dedicated her  practice to representing descendants of the grantees of original Spanish and Mexican land grants in Texas. She had her own website where she posted information about Spanish and Mexican land grants, and a brochure containing information about Heirs Enforcing Inheritance Rights (HEIRS), a membership organization she promoted. Ms. Fowler agreed to represent heirs in suits to determine heirship – legal proceedings in which she proved the lineage of descendants of land-grant grantees. According to the report, Ms. Fowler said she charges “$300 per client, and in some cases as much as $375 per client. If true, she has collected millions of dollars in legal fees from the descendants. To date, she admits she has not recovered any mineral proceeds for her clients.” The Commission goes to some length to disprove some legal claims made by Ms. Fowler. One statement on Ms. Fowler’s website is that “in the case of land grants, if no mention is made of the minerals or the transference of minerals by sale or conveyance of the land, the minerals are retained by the seller and pass to his or her heirs.” In other words, when the original grantee of the land grant sold his land, the deed did not pass title to the minerals unless it specifically so provided. All Texas attorneys know that this is not the law. A deed of land passes title to all minerals owned by the grantor unless those minerals are specifically reserved in the deed. The Commission concluded:

I’ve been asked what is a “net royalty acre.”

The term “net royalty acre” is used by mineral and royalty buyers to price a mineral or royalty interest that is subject to an oil and gas lease. It is related to, but different from, a “net mineral acre.”

To illustrate, consider the following hypothetical: I own a 1/4 mineral interest in Blackacre, containing 640 acres. My mineral interest is subject to an oil and gas lease reserving 1/4 royalty. There is one producing well on the tract and there are prospects for additional drilling.

In 2013, the Texas Legislature passed House Bill 724, creating the Texas Unclaimed Mineral Proceeds Commission, and charged the commission to study and provide recommendations regarding distribution of unclaimed mineral proceeds held by the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. The bill was sponsored by State Representative Ryan Guillen. The Commission met eight times during 2014, took voluminous testimony, and produced a 100-page report last December that is fascinating reading, at least for an oil and gas attorney in Texas. Most Texans know that large portions of South Texas were settled during the 17^th and 18^th centuries when the territory was governed by the King of Spain and later the government of Mexico. Those governments granted lands to their citizens (including Stephen F. Austin), and many subjects settled in South Texas on the lands granted to them. When Texas gained its independence, it recognized the validity of land grants made by Spain and Mexico. But immigration of settlers from the United States into these territories, prior to and after Texas’ independence, produced social and economic disruption and displacement of some of the Spanish and Mexican settlers and uncertainty regarding their land titles.

Anglo-American newcomers, with clear advantages in their knowledge of the new legal system, its procedures and language, now competed for the natural resources of the region, pressing their legal and economic advantages – supplemented at times by extralegal means – to acquire ownership of the land. In addition, loss of records, the difficulty of locating original boundary lines, the clouds on many of the titles, and complications of collective family ownership were potential sources of disputes and acrimony among competing parties of all stripes. The resulting resentment, sense of dispossession and injustice, suspicion, and bitterness flared into open conflict at times in South Texas in the nineteenth century and, justified or not, lingers even today.

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