Texas Administrative Code
Title 31 - NATURAL RESOURCES AND CONSERVATION
Part 1 - GENERAL LAND OFFICE
Chapter 13 - LAND RESOURCES
Subchapter E - VACANCIES
Section 13.33 - Definitions
Current through Reg. 50, No. 13; March 28, 2025
The following terms, when used in this subchapter, mean the following unless the context clearly indicates otherwise.
(1) "Applicant" means any person, including a good-faith claimant, who files a vacancy application.
(2) "Application commencement date" means the date determined by the commissioner following the agency's determination that the application is administratively complete, which generally will be not later than thirty days following the date of the letter determining that the application is administratively complete.
(3) "Agency" means the General Land Office.
(4) "Board" means the School Land Board.
(5) "Chief surveyor" means the chief surveyor of the General Land Office.
(6) "Commissioner" means the commissioner of the General Land Office.
(7) "Cost deposit" means an advance payment required to be made by the applicant to cover the anticipated costs of a vacancy proceeding.
(8) "Eligible surveyor" means a duly elected county surveyor in a county that has an elected county surveyor or a licensed state land surveyor as defined in § 1071.002(5) of the Texas Occupations Code.
(9) "Exception" means an objection or protest.
(10) "Exceptor" means the necessary party filing an exception to a survey or vacancy application.
(11) "Good-faith claimant" means a person who, on the application commencement date:
(12) "Interest" means any right or title in or to real property, including a surface, subsurface, or mineral estate.
(13) "Lease vacant land" means to obtain a mineral lease for the mineral estate appurtenant to the vacancy or any portion thereof.
(14) "Mineral estate" means an estate in or ownership of all or part of the minerals underlying a specified tract of land, and a right of entry and use to obtain the minerals.
(15) "Necessary party" means:
(16) "Permanent interest" means an interest established under any existing instrument or document that is not limited to a finite time period.
(17) "Permanent School Fund land" means lands dedicated to fund public schools by Article VII, Sections 5(a) and (c) of the Texas Constitution.
(18) "Surface estate" means an estate in or ownership of the surface of a particular tract of land.
(19) "Survey report" means a written report of a survey conducted by a licensed state land surveyor or a county surveyor of the county in which a majority of the land alleged to be vacant is located.
(20) "Unsurveyed" means land that was never surveyed out of the sovereign lands of the state and, for purposes of this subchapter, such land remains unsurveyed until the vacancy process has concluded, and the land is recorded in the records of the General Land Office as Permanent School Fund land.
(21) "Vacancy" means an area of unsurveyed public school land that:
(22) "Vacancy application" means a form submitted to the commissioner by an applicant to:
(23) "Vacant land" means the surface, subsurface or mineral estate, or any combination of the surface, subsurface and mineral estates, of land determined to be a vacancy, or any portion thereof.