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

[stevenf]

btolle you are entirely correct that if they have or eventually figure out a way around executive rights to the surface that the title policy would only give you what you paid to insure which best case is what the property was worth when you bought it. And absolutely you could lose or would lose any improvements and current value. I should have made that a lot more clear. As for the member that does not own any of his mineral rights and probably didn't have the executive rights on his closing paper work. That is the reason for the executive right insert into your contract if you don't control all surface right activity the mineral owners can (usually with notice but not always required) come on to your place and drill for oil, water, strip mine it, mine the gravel out from under it and many other hard to believe but true activities. Depending on how your paper work reads they might have to pay a little something for the use or fix anything they break or change but by and large if you don't own the mineral rights there is nothing that you can do to prevent it.
Steve

 

[sneaky_pete]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( In many (if not most) states if they own the mineral rights they can come onto your land, build a road to the well site, drill an oil well, set their pumping equipment, and run power lines and oil pipelines to it without ever saying a word to you. Unless the deed to the mineral rights says otherwise you can't stop them.

DISCLAIMER: I am a Licensed Texas Real Estate Salesperson and cannot give legal advice. If you are in doubt about any real estate matter you should contact an Attorney.

Bill Tolle )</font>

In Texas (and other oil and gas producing states I have worked in) they must talk to you first and pay you reasonable "damages" for the use of your surface, but essentially you are correct that the mineral estate has a legal right to explore and develop whether the surface owner wants it or not.

 

[Moon]

I'm in that situation. I do not own the mineral rights to my 50 acres. There was an existing oil well on my property when I bought it. The proceeds from the well are divided between 8 heirs of the former property owner. At the time we purchased (5+ yrs ago), the well was producing enough gas that the gas company gave checks to each of the eight owners in the area of $40 a month. The one thing I did get was a free gas hookup to the well. One hookup was allowed per the contract with the oil company, and I negotiated for that hookup.
So far this has worked out great for us. The well is over 2500 feet from our house, but the gas supply works just fine. I was told the company had a hard time deciding on a place to drill. The property is very hilly, and they had to do lots of excavation work. They could come back around and drill aother one, but it seems unlikely. They are limited as to how close to your residence they can set up a drilling operation. Off hand I can't remember what that distance is though.
They have a road they use to access the well. They check it weekly. However, they do not keep the road up at all. They have 4x4 vehicles and if it can make it to the well, they do not do any road improvements. I tried to get them to spit with me on some bulldozing and gravel for the road, but they were not the least bit interested.
Overall, it has not been a problem for us so far. I enjoy free gas and they have not shown any signs of planning to drill another well.

Moon of Ohio

 

[Moon]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( pay you reasonable "damages" for the use of your surface )</font>

I have found this to be true in my situtation also. After moving in I found out our neighbor gets a monthy check from the oil company. Somehow the oil company driving down our road, which is close to our property line with this neighbor creates a disturbance of their 'peace'. Before drilling the oil company had pen'd a deal with the neighbor saying they will give said neighbor 'x' number of dollars a month for this inconvienience. The neighbor is not one of the heirs and has nothing to do with the oil well.
So, I inquired why don't I get paid some money for them driving down my road to access the oil well. Since it was a preexisting condition and known to me before I purchased, no cash for me, the landowner. Oh well, at least we got the gas hookup.

Moon of Ohio

 

[sneaky_pete]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( ...They are limited as to how close to your residence they can set up a drilling operation. Off hand I can't remember what that distance is though.)</font>

Can't remember what it is in Ohio, but in Texas and most other states it is 300 feet minimum.

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( They have a road they use to access the well. They check it weekly. However, they do not keep the road up at all. They have 4x4 vehicles and if it can make it to the well, they do not do any road improvements. I tried to get them to spit with me on some bulldozing and gravel for the road, but they were not the least bit interested.)</font>

On a well that produces that small of an amount, they can't afford to spend any money on it. When it gets to the point of losing money (very easy to do) then they will shut it in and plug it.

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Overall, it has not been a problem for us so far. I enjoy free gas and they have not shown any signs of planning to drill another well.)</font>

Highly unlikely they would drill another well when that one is so nearly depleted. They would need enough new acreage for a proration unit (depends on the field rules there, but typically at least 40 acres), or they could plug the existing well and re-drill it on the original proration unit but again that is extremely unlikely since the old one is about shot.

 

[Moon]

One more note .....Free gas is not Free! It cost us over 2500 dollars to run the gas line to our house. Expenses since that have been minimal. Someone told us it takes approx. 7 yrs to break even and that seems real close from my view.


Moon of Ohio

 

[cowboydoc]

Surface rights are great but the company can go underground. This happened to a friend of ours. They had the same surface rights. Actually the gravel company, they make gravel, concrete, lime, etc., offered him a very, very generous offer for the land, in the millions. The land was worth probably $700,000 on the open market top dollar. They even offered to let him stay there. He refused and held out for more money. Finally the company said we withdraw all offers. Six months later he finds out they tunneled from their land that they owned outright under his to get the rock. Now he has numerous tunnels and work going on beneath them all the time. They went to court to try and stop it but the state and federal court held up the company's rights to mine the rock.

 

[fractal]

Had a friend of a friend who bought some land in oregon. Built his house. Same situation as you, he didn't own the mineral rights. People who did came in and mined the place. Bull dozed his house in the process. He lost everything he put into the improvements (the house) and the property became virtually worthless (open mining pit).

Not sure how much artistic freedom was taken with the story between him and me, but he did say he lost his house and all he spent building it, and was forced out of retirement to save enough money to keep eating.

 

[EastTexFrank]

I don't think that's right, either that or there is a lot more to the story that he didn't tell you. There are too many out of work lawyers for something like that to happen without a long, long court fight.

 

[SamB]

Hello all. I have researched the Mineral rights thing a little.

A friends family is from Eastern Ky. That is where his ancestors originated from. Dating back to the 1800's. Went done to the Knott Co. Court House and dug through many documents. Ran across a filed document that listed all the mineral rights conveyed to the oil gas and coal companies
starting in the late 1800's for Knott Co.

A really sad situation. The people didnt know what they had.
living in a sparsely populated area and being very poor being in the mountains. There was a total of 87,773.76 acres conveyed for the mineral rights. For a total of $568,364.12.

This is a example of the way the conveyance worked.

Say Joe Blow had 200 acres. He could convey all the mineral rights or he could convey all of them. If he conveyed 175 acres. The remaining 25 acres could not be mined or explored for gas or oil or no other minerals.

On the 175 acres that he did convey they would pay him so much an acre. All timber on the conveyed 175 acres also went to the mineral companies. He can not build anything on this 175 acres. He had the right to use the land surface as he
liked. Hunting ,farming as long it didnt go against disrupt the gathering of minerals.

He could cut timber as long as it was under 10" in diameter to use on the farm only.

If he decided to sell the land the mineral company still owns the rights and he cant sell the rights just the surface land.
He received no royalties on the minerals because he conveyed all his rights to them in the conveyance.

Now on the remaining 25 acres he could do what he wanted.
He still owned all the mineral rights. He could sign gas oil and coal leases and get royalties.

If anyone that lives in the Eastern part of the U.S. would like to know what to look for at the court house send me an email
and I will tell you what to look for.