I'll just post it here instead of PM's in case anyone else wants to weigh in.
Property is 2ish acres in Liberty Hill with a tear down on it. Prob worth 150k-200k so not an overly large sum of money.
The property was owned by my stepfathers father and his wife (no relation to stepfather; remarried). Some years back, they quit paying the property taxes because they were olds living on SS. Since Texas won't come after seniors in arrears on property taxes, they've been building up. IIRC, it's up to 35k now.
His father died a couple of years ago with no will so his part of the deed changed to Estate of XXXXX. At the time, there were 5 living siblings. The wife continued to live there until last December when she passed away. She has one daughter and a will was left. The daughter changed her half of the property interest to her name. Now the property deed says "Daughters Name/Estate of XXXXXX".
Question 1: On the estate side, there were 5 siblings. One has since passed away having no will either. No one can give a straight answer to where his piece of the pie would fall. Is it his surviving spouse? His kids?
Question 2: Let's say the property sells for $200k and there are 40k in taxes owed. My assumption is that since one party holds 50% ownership, they also own 50% of the tax debt. Then the other 5 parties that own the other 50% would split the owed amount between them. However, whoever is processing this is saying it instead will be split 6 equal ways. That seems incorrect to me and in the end, probably isn't a big difference $$$ wise but there are bitter family disputes going on over this stuff right now so there is a big sense of no one wants anyone else to get more than what they're legally entitled to.