No mineral rights in WV?????? HUH?

[Hillfarmer]

Here in WV it is very hard to find land with the mineral rights attached. If you do be pr.epared to pay$$$. The coal and gas companies were successful around the turn of the last century at getting the state legislature to separate surface and land rights. The companies then approached property owners and asked if they could purchase the mineral rights. Since most people had no way of getting to the gas or coal they agreed to sell the rights relatively cheaply. The companies do have the right to come on to your property in order to remove the minerals, however there are regulations involve and the companies would rather deal with the property owner than the property owners attorney. The surface rights also control the timber rights so removing trees or damaging an existing surface feature can be an issue. In all fairness though most companies in this state today are willing to help the property owner out as well by maintaining road, building farm ponds, and installing culverts.

As a general rule in WV if an advertised property does not specifically say that the mineral rights will be conveyed they probably will not.

I hope this helps

Eric

 

[dmccarty]

And pretty little ponds attract water fowl and fisheys.

When we sold timber the timber deed specified that if the logger did not take the trees in N number of years the trees went back to us. I forget the exact number of years but I think it was three. I have heard of this happening. It did not happen to us. They paid for the trees and they came and got them quickly. I was afraid it might take them 2.5 years.

Later,
Dan

 

[FallbrookFarmer]

I was about to make an offer on some land and found out it didn't come with mineral rights!!!!Found out that it is very hard to get mineral rights in WV. What thu??? Other people abviously are ignoring this but what if some company decides to dig up your land when the price of coal goes higher??? Very dissappointing. I haven't heard of any horror stories but it does concern me. Am I being overly concerned here?

You aren't being overly concerned, but I think an even more important concern would be WATER rights. California has rules in place, that basically
leave it up to the state to issue you a permit to use water on/under your(?) land.
Caveat Emptor!

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Water rights is interesting. I'm not sure where, when and how states suddenly seemed to begin to control water rights. Once upon a time a land owner could use water on their property, but it seems nowdays there are a lot of restrictions and or prohibitions in general without the necessary "permits", which is control.

 

[piller]

When we bought our farm in TN our sales contract stated that we would get all mineral rights. At closing I carefully read the deed and it said that one company owned coal rights, another company oil rights, and another company gas rights.

I did not go through with the closing. The seller was not aware of the issues, they only owned the property a short while, the deed information went back to the 1970's. The title company was of no assistance so we got our own real estate attorney. Two of the three companies were contacted and they provided a release of the mineral rights. The third company was no longer in business and could not be contacted. Our attorney had to file some document at the courthouse to deal with this last issue. Some of the mineral rights documents contained language with time frames and expirations.

We then proceeded to close on the property, with a two week delay due to the mineral right issues. Everything turned out OK.

I learned from this experience to not trust title companies, to get a good real estate attorney to look out for my interests, and to get closing documents in advance and read them carefully, especially the deed.

Not long after we did close there were stories in the news about companies that were taking mountain stone from properties on which they owned mineral rights. A coworker of mine who grew up in KY said that he remembered farms where companies came in and tore them up to get coal.

 

[Chuck52]

I read an interview with the manager of one of the coal companies that worked in the eastern Kentucky area. The company did what is called mountain top removal to strip mine the coal, and it can be pretty drastic looking. He said he figured his company was doing a service, since there was so little flat land in the area.

Chuck

 

[psj12]

With the Supreme Court's rulings on eminent domain issues, favoring local governments taking of private land for commercial interests, I would doubt that any claim to mineral rights of a property owner would be honored if they were to locate valuable minerals under your small plot. They would claim the land under the eminent domain laws and give it to the large mining company claiming it is for the greater good of the town, county or state.

 

[CMSporthorses]

Here is Aus, mineral rights belong to the "crown" and they lease them to companies/indiviuals first as exploration permits and then as mining leases.
Permit holders can come on to explore drill sample etc, and if a lease gets granted you get screwwed! lol Your land can be subject to compulsory aquisition if you don't place nice and accept the usually rather generous offers...if it gets to that stage you MAY get a high price if they were being a bit tightfisted, but you might get less than what they offered previously.
In rural/remote areas minning/exploration companies also have to deal with native title which can be an expensive and time consuming process that often comes down to extortion tactics... "Give us big $ and lots of perks for us now and we will approve within the year - or hold out for a more genuine agreement and we will hold up your 1/2 billion dollar project for the next 15 years...not worrying that it means our people lose out"

 

[dave1949]

Water rights is interesting. I'm not sure where, when and how states suddenly seemed to begin to control water rights. Once upon a time a land owner could use water on their property, but it seems nowdays there are a lot of restrictions and or prohibitions in general without the necessary "permits", which is control.

A topic I have always wondered about. I know Western water laws are different than in the Northeast. Here is a pretty good article regarding Nevada.
High and dry in Nevada

On the southern coast of Maine, the Kennebunk-Wells Water District has used eminent domain to prevent development in the watershed that they draw from. One case I remember was a golf course project. No way was the water plant going to allow golf course runoff into the supply. Just recently the voters in that water district denied Nestle (Poland Springs) a permit to draw water for bottling from the watershed area.

I think it is an evolving issue. More population, more water demand and so forth. Out West (as we call it here ) they have been dealing with more limited supplies for a long time and have older, more developed laws it seems. It would be challenging to deal with as a stranger.
Dave.

 

[ToadHill]

This is an interesting topic. I live near Lake Erie and every now and then we hear discussions about proposals to "Ship" great lakes water to the southwest. Since the great lakes, except Michigan are the border between the US and Canada I've wondered how you can differentiate between water that belongs to the US and Canada.

I believe Canada has laws that restricts the ability to the use of water form the great lakes.

If they ask my opinion (ha ha) I say if you want great lakes water, move back to the rust belt.