Mineral Rights or no rights?

[Dougw133]

I am a young buck (27) grew up in Northeast PA not far from Dimmock that was featured in the film "Gasland". I have only been gone for about 4 years living in Philadelphia. Pretty sure i was the only one in Philly who mowed their lawn with a Husqvarna YTH23V42LS tractor. Needless to say after working for the Philadelphia Fire Dept. for the years, the woods were calling and I decided we had saved enough for a house on some land back up north. We've been back since June 2011 looking for homes. To our major disgust the real estate market here has become a mineral rights nightmare. Every owner trying to sell surface rights only and no buyers willing to do so. I figured if we were patient we'd find one. NOT true. We have our eye on 2 properties both with homes on them. One is 8 acres we made an offer on but now the owner discovered he didnt own the rights either, BUT he is "quieting the title" which means the title is so dated he can erase the cloud on it. Now he thinks he wants to retain a percentage and we said no. Another property is 20 Acres in the Heart of the gas drilling. The owner owns everything and the mineral rights. He originally stated they were to keep the rights but now says he is willing to negotiate.

Question is at this point is it worth it to just assume we won't find much with mineral rights included? Would negotiating a percentage of the rights be worth it or just not a good idea? The only rights we find are on much smaller parcels such as 1 acre, and it's just not enough land/privacy for us. We aren't looking to get rich, we just want our land for us. We don't want anyone plowing a road through making thousands off of our (or what we feel is our) property. Any suggestions?

 

[forgeblast]

Hay dougw133, i am right down the road from you. Much of the land has the mineral rights leased. Much i mean pretty much all of it. Being that they are drilling like crazy you can probably drive past 10-20 wells in that area alone you can see why owners want to keep part of the percentage. The way the gas leases were written, and especially the early ones, they are active anywhere from 5-10 years. Then they will revert back to the owner and you can keep them out. But if it has a lease now on the property they will be able to put a gas pad on it.
If you can find a property with out a leases(good luck) that would be the way to go, if not look outside dimock maby closer to brooklyn area, or start talking to real estate owners. I think shamrock auctions has a few houses coming up that the leases go with the property.
Welcom back.
Youll notice things have changed a bit.

 

[Storm56]

If I were in your shoes I would forego the sub surface rights and try to negotiate an agreement where you own the surface rights. With the horizontal drilling technology it is not necessary to disturb a surface area to extract the gas.

With that said you must be sure to have some say in the event your water gets contaminated, if you are not part of the lease you may be out of luck in getting the gas company to help you deal with a contaminated well.

 

[tallyho8]

Please explain "BUT he is "quieting the title" which means the title is so dated he can erase the cloud on it."

I have never heard of this. I own property without mineral rights and a very dated title. Is it possible to get the mineral rights restored?

 

[greasemonkeyok]

Tallyho8, you might first try to find the information from one of the mineral/royalty owners associations in your state. Different states probably have different rules.

Unfortunately for Dougw133, the old saying in producing states is "the meek shall inherit the earth; but the strong keep their minerals."

 

[tallyho8]

Since my father homesteaded the property and the gov't held the mineral rights, I doubt that we could ever get them back.

 

[forgeblast]

What problem he will be running into is that
1. there is a lease in place, that transfers if it is sold, the gas companys do not have to
redo any lease.
2. the original owner has already recived a signing bonus and now wants part of the royality.
3. The original owner wants (i would think) him to pay more if he holds all the royality %.
I would make sure I held all royality % if I had to I might make it on a timescale where
lets say the royality is the 12.5%, then when you buy the property its 50-50, next year 60-40, etc...until you have it all.

 

[two_bit_score]

Since my father homesteaded the property and the gov't held the mineral rights, I doubt that we could ever get them back.

La. Is very different than many states in that the mineral rights can be severed but if they don't go into production (held by production) then they can revert back to the property owner. Trick is that a lot of transfers could have occurred between when they were originally severed and now. More than one person has expected to regain the mineral rights on property in La. Only to find that they are part of an old lease that is hbp.

 

[Dougw133]

What problem he will be running into is that
1. there is a lease in place, that transfers if it is sold, the gas companys do not have to
redo any lease.
2. the original owner has already recived a signing bonus and now wants part of the royality.
3. The original owner wants (i would think) him to pay more if he holds all the royality %.
I would make sure I held all royality % if I had to I might make it on a timescale where
lets say the royality is the 12.5%, then when you buy the property its 50-50, next year 60-40, etc...until you have it all.

I looked at the 20 acre property again to day and im just not comfortable with it. It's a decent property but mostly wooded sloping downward. There is a lease in place and what would happen I found out is that if something happened on the property it would be up to the original lease signer to pursue damages. Doubt they'd care across the country sitting on royalties. Think im just going to wait and see.

 

[Dougw133]

Please explain "BUT he is "quieting the title" which means the title is so dated he can erase the cloud on it."

I have never heard of this. I own property without mineral rights and a very dated title. Is it possible to get the mineral rights restored?

What happened here is back in the days of coal the companies bought up all the rights and most of those companies now do not exist.The title sits in their name but are idle. You can basically sue the company that doesn't exist anymore for a quiet title. It's not as clean as straight up mineral ownership but it's better than nothing.