Inherited mineral rights in Texas: the first five steps

Published September 23, 2026.

Most people who inherit mineral rights in Texas inherit a fraction, not a ranch. A grandparent leased a tract in a county you may never have visited, somebody drilled a well on it or on a unit it was pooled into, and a small share of what that well sells has been paid out ever since. Nobody hands you a folder when that happens. What arrives instead is a name on a county appraisal notice, a letter from a company you have never heard of, or a relative’s remark that there used to be a check.

These are the first five steps, in the order that saves the most trouble. Four of them cost nothing. The third is the one that normally needs a professional, and this guide says so rather than choosing for you. Everything below describes Texas, because the records and the rules here are Texas’s own.

1. Find the paper

Start with what the family already has, because it answers questions the public records cannot. Five documents matter more than all the rest.

• The will, or the court file if the estate went through probate, which says who was meant to receive what.
• The deed into the person who died, which says what they actually owned and whether the minerals had been severed from the surface.
• Old division orders, which name the operator, the lease and, most usefully, the decimal interest that was being paid.
• Old check stubs, which name the wells and the purchaser and show what the interest actually earned.
• The county appraisal notice, which names the appraisal district, the account number and the county.

One old check stub is worth an afternoon of searching, because it carries the lease name, the operator and the decimal all at once. Photograph everything you find, front and back, before it goes anywhere. If none of it survives, that is ordinary, and the next step still works.

2. Confirm the county and the name on the roll

Texas taxes producing mineral interests as property, so nearly every producing interest sits on a county appraisal roll under somebody’s name. That roll is public, and it is the fastest way to learn which county you are dealing with and how that county spells the name.

Expect the name not to be yours. It is commonly the person who died, sometimes with the words estate of after it, sometimes a life estate, sometimes a family trust, and often a spelling the county truncated to fit its own field. Counties issue their own account numbers independently, so one person with minerals in four counties is four separate accounts with four different numbers and no link between them.

Searching a roll by name is its own skill, and the companion guide How to find out whether you own mineral rights in Texas walks through how the names are written and what a match does and does not prove.

3. Get the title into your name

Two routes are common in Texas, and they are not interchangeable.

An affidavit of heirship is a sworn statement of the family history, signed by people who knew the family and had nothing to gain, and filed in the deed records of the county where the minerals sit. It is evidence rather than a court ruling, and each operator decides for itself whether to accept one.

Probate is the court route. Texas offers several forms of it, including probating a will as a muniment of title, which is often used when an estate is mostly land and minerals.

Which route fits depends on whether there was a will, how long ago the death was, whether the heirs agree, what other assets are involved and what the payor will accept. That is a question for a Texas probate or oil and gas attorney, and it is worth an hour of one’s time before anything is filed. Nothing in this guide is legal advice, and a document filed in the deed records is difficult to unwind.

4. Tell the operator

Once title is clear, the payor needs three things from you.

• A signed division order, which states the decimal interest it believes you hold.
• A completed W-9, so the payor can report the income and does not have to withhold at the backup rate.
• A current address, and a way to reach you when something changes.

Until those arrive, the account usually sits in suspense, which means the money is being held rather than lost. Royalty income is what the families who receive it have always called mailbox money, and the mailbox only works when the payor knows which one it is.

Check the decimal on the division order against the old stubs before signing. In Texas a division order does not amend the lease, and section 91.402 of the Natural Resources Code is where that and the payment deadlines are written; the companion guide Division orders in Texas: what to check before you sign goes through it line by line. If the decimal disagrees with what the family was paid, a letter to the operator’s owner relations department is the ordinary way to raise it.

5. Watch what happens next

Minerals are not a static asset, and most of what happens to yours happens without anyone telling you.

A drilling permit filed with the Texas Railroad Commission says an operator has asked to drill somewhere. A completion report says a well was finished and may be about to produce. A new P-4 says your lease changed operators, which is usually why a familiar payment starts arriving from an unfamiliar name. A production posting says the Commission has received the monthly volumes for a lease.

All four are public, all four name the county where the well sits, and none of them generates a letter to you. The county pages on this site summarize each of them, county by county, one week at a time, so you can read a county the way you would read a local paper.

What to do next

Work the five steps in order, and keep every document you find in one place, because the same paper answers the operator’s questions, the appraisal district’s questions and eventually your accountant’s.

Take the title question to a Texas probate or oil and gas attorney rather than guessing between an affidavit and probate, and take the income question to a CPA in the first year, because royalty income, depletion and the treatment of a bonus are not obvious.

NetAcre finds your minerals on the county roll and tells you when something is filed near them, free.