§ 12.004.Venue

A venue provision with two options, and both are chosen for the same reason.

An action under this chapter may be brought in any district court in the county in which the recorded document is recorded or in which the real property is located.

Neither option refers to where the defendant is. That is the notable feature, and it is deliberate.

The people who file fraudulent liens are often nowhere near the property. A filing can be mailed from another state or from a correctional facility, and a venue rule tied to the defendant’s residence would send a Texas landowner elsewhere to clear a Texas title.

The two options given are the two places the harm exists. The county where the document sits in the records, and the county where the land is.

Those are usually the same county, since a lien against land is recorded where the land is — but not always, and the alternative matters for a filing lodged in the wrong county or for a financing statement filed centrally.

"Any district court" leaves the choice among the district courts of that county to the ordinary assignment rules.

Placing venue where the record is also puts the case before a court that can act on the record. The relief sought is frequently an injunction and a judicial finding that the instrument is void, which is most useful in the county whose records carry it.

The section names district courts only, so the chapter’s action does not proceed in a county or justice court.