I had a guy leave me a voicemail the other day saying he was a landman and was trying to reach the heirs of my Mom's name (which is just me lol) and that she owned an interest in property in Houston County and about owning a gas lease. My Mom died 2 years ago and we have settled all her finances and everything a long time ago and I didn't know about any gas lease or mineral rights. That said, she made some other financial decisions unbeknownst to me so she very well could have. Also, she never lived in Houston County but her Dad did as a boy and his family was out there so I'm wondering if she was the beneficiary of maybe my Grandpa's rights or something. I looked the Landman's name up and found his LinkedIn so I think he's legit.

Anyway, my 2 questions for Texags before I call him back are:

1) Where or how can I look up if my Mom has any gas lease or mineral rights in Houston county? Any suggestions on how I can discover if my Mom has anything like this I didn't know about?

2) How can I verify this is not a scam and is legit besides obviously not giving him my personal financial info or something? I 'm planning on asking who he works for and then contacting his company to verify that. It might be obvious that he's legit but hey it's 2026 scam/hacker world sooooo.

Thanks for any suggestions or help!

In 1970 my dad bought 50 foreclosed houses in Midland and we moved them to Fort Stockton. That was the end of that as far as we knew. He passed away in 2014. In 2018 I got a call from a landman looking for him. He said he retained the mineral rights on a couple of lots that still had them. Mu mother is still living and knew nothing about it. She deeded the interest to me and I leased this miniscule interest and got an oil company and got a small check every month until last month when I sold to another company.

The second company contacted me about 6 months ago and I was reluctant but checked them out and completed the sale July 16. If you're interested PM me and I'll give you his name and contact info. Process was easy.

There should be record on the appraisal district's and tax assesor's website. Search for her name. There's also likely property tax due. Sometimes the county clerk will have online records and you can find mineral deeds and leases there.

The appraisal district isn't going to have record of every mineral interest out there. It'll have to have been involved in relatively recent production for them to have record of it. If that was the case it probably would have been on the radar for the estate financial disposition.

Why not the surface too?

Martin Cash said:

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THIS is why we need a constitutional amendment limiting the number of years for a mineral reservation before it reverts back to the present surface owner.

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That'll never happen, but it certainly sucks trying to sell land without minerals and an active well. Buyers freak out over production and infrastructure they would have no control over.

I had one calling me about a year ago now and we negotiated several different things and finally came to what I thought was a fair deal. He was supposed to send me papers to sign and then everything went silent. No one returns any calls and I haven't heard anything since.