§ 17.003.Suit Against Nonresident or Transient Property Owner

A provision that makes title-clearing possible against a defendant who cannot be found.

For the purpose of establishing title, settling a lien or encumbrance, or determining an estate, interest, lien, or encumbrance, a person claiming an interest in property may sue another who claims an adverse interest, lien, or encumbrance but who resides outside this state, resides in an unknown place, or is a transient.

The final sentence is the one that matters most: the plaintiff is not required to have actual possession of the property.

That removes the classic obstacle. Trespass to try title, the traditional Texas action for determining title to land, has historically demanded that the plaintiff establish a superior right — and a claimant out of possession, facing an absent adverse claimant, may be unable to bring any suit at all.

The three defendant categories cover the whole field of the unreachable. Living elsewhere, living somewhere unknown, and living nowhere in particular are different problems, and the section treats them alike.

The three purposes are broader than title alone. Settling a lien or encumbrance reaches the stale mortgage whose holder has vanished, or an old judgment lien nobody has released — defects that cloud a title without anyone claiming to own the land.

The section supplies the right to sue; service on such a defendant comes from elsewhere, principally the citation-by-publication provision and the substituted-service rules.

Read it with the two neighbouring provisions on suing unknown heirs and unknown landowners, which address the case where the adverse claimant cannot even be named.