Category: Mineral Rights

Don’t Be Undermined

Unless you’re buying a condo, you might just assume you’re getting everything within your new home’s property lines: ground, water, air.

Usually, you’d be right.

The builder or homeowner who sells you a home transfers rights to the property to you. If the seller is holding onto certain rights, this must be disclosed, following directions set forth in state law. But what if your seller is unaware of rights the original developer retained? Or maybe you’re living in a state where no one has to tell you anything about it.

Yes, it happens.

Continue reading “Will You Own the Mineral, Water, and Air Rights to Your New Home?”

When purchasing real estate, it is common for surface rights to convey to the buyer. But there are also subsurface rights, such as gas, oil, and mineral rights, that do not always transfer. For any buyer in a real estate transaction, it is important to be aware of exactly what they are receiving. If they expect to have mineral rights, for example, it should not be just assumed that those will convey when the deed is transferred into their name. In a lot of cases, subsurface rights belong to the seller and will stay with the seller, or they belong to a person or corporate entity that they were sold to a long time ago, and not the current seller of the property.

Continue reading “A Reunified Estate: Bringing the Mineral and Surface Rights Back Together for Real Property”

Mineral rights have long been the subject of lawsuits, federal government interventions, and of course, get-rich-quick stories. In the famed television show The Beverly Hillbillies, Jed Clampett and his family find themselves the beneficiaries of untold riches after discovering oil on their property. For most mineral rights owners, though, possession of these rights isn’t nearly so romantic—or lucrative.

Continue reading “How Are Oil, Gas, and Mineral Rights Affected by Real Estate Deeds?”