Background
Turner and Lorenn Solari own two residential lots in Comal County. In September 2024, they sought exemptions from ad valorem taxation, claiming the properties were conveyed through “Texas land patents” that did not include a reservation of the state’s right to tax, thus exempting them from property taxes. The Comal Appraisal District denied the exemption request.
The Solaris appealed to the Comal County Appraisal Review Board, which upheld the denial. They then filed a pro se petition for review in Comal County district court, seeking a declaration that the ARB’s determination to impose property taxes on land conveyed through Texas land patents was improper and unsupported by law, and requesting an injunction against further tax assessment. The district court granted the ARB’s plea to the jurisdiction and the CAD’s motion for summary judgment, dismissing all claims. The Solaris appealed.
The Court’s Holding
The court affirmed the district court’s judgment on multiple grounds. First, regarding the Appraisal Review Board, the court held that the Texas Tax Code expressly prohibits petitions for review from being brought against the ARB itself—such petitions must be brought against the appraisal district. Therefore, the ARB’s plea to the jurisdiction was properly granted, and the court lacked authority over the ARB.
On the merits against the Comal Appraisal District, the court held as a matter of law that land conveyed through a Texas land patent remains subject to ad valorem taxation. The court reasoned that a land patent transfers title to property but does not relinquish the state’s sovereign right of taxation. While a state may reserve specific interests when conveying land (such as public access rights), the sovereign power to tax is not surrendered by merely failing to express it in the patent. The Texas Constitution vests counties with authority to levy ad valorem taxes on all property within their boundaries, and this authority is not impaired by a land patent’s transfer of private title.
The court noted that federal and state law firmly establish that states do not lose their sovereign tax power through conveyances of land. As the court observed, citing the Supreme Court’s decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma, land patents “transferred legal title and are the basis for much of the private land ownership in a number of States today. But no one thinks any of this diminished the United States’s claim to sovereignty over the land.” Accordingly, the summary judgment was properly granted because the Solaris’ property was taxable as a matter of law.
Key Takeaways
- Land patents transfer title but do not exempt property from ad valorem taxation; the state retains its sovereign tax power regardless of whether the patent explicitly reserves it.
- A state’s sovereign power to tax cannot be surrendered by implication or silence—only by express, unambiguous terms; historical conveyance documents do not operate to strip taxing jurisdiction.
- Petitions for review of appraisal board denials must be brought against the appraisal district, not the appraisal review board, under Texas Tax Code § 42.21(b).
- Property owners claiming tax exemptions based on historical title documents bear the burden of establishing legal exemption under the Texas Tax Code’s enumerated exemptions.
Why It Matters
This decision provides clear guidance that property owners cannot use historical land patents as a basis to escape ad valorem taxation. The holding reinforces longstanding principles that the state’s sovereign taxing authority survives all land conveyances unless explicitly and expressly relinquished. This case will be important for appraisal districts and taxing units facing property owners who assert novel tax exemption theories based on historical title documents or claims of sovereign immunity.
The decision also has broader implications for property owners who might rely on arcane historical conveyances, common-law theories, or sovereign citizen arguments to evade taxes. By holding categorically that land patents do not exempt property from taxation as a matter of law, the court eliminated an entire class of potential tax-exemption arguments at the summary judgment stage, protecting the taxing authority’s revenue base and reducing litigation costs for disputes involving such claims.