Beginner’s Guide to Mineral Rights — Part 2—Real Property

If you own real estate / land, how can you find out if you already have minerals?

C.W.Morton

Jun 22, 2024

If you own real estate / land, how can you find out if you already have minerals?

Source : Straico AI. Prompt : Texan with Questioning Look, Desert Background

The surface and the underlying minerals are both “Real Property”.

All agreements and contracts pertaining to the acquisition or sale of real estate must be recorded at the county courthouse in the county in which the property is located.

Therefore, first step to find out if property that you own might still have minerals included is searching the court records for your property.

This can be done online, or you can personally visit the courthouse to look over the records if you have the ability to do so. Make sure you get the legal description of your property!

Go to the tax office first if you don’t have the description. They can help you locate the property description because you pay property taxes as a surface owner.

Having the deed that was signed when you or a family member bought the property is preferable. You can seek for help in the deed records room with the clerk you can help you understand what you are searching for.

A deeds covering your property, in which the seller (referred to as the “Grantor”) transferred ownership to the buyer (referred to as the “Grantee”), is what you are searching for at the courthouse.

The initial deeds may have been executed in the 1800s, depending on the state in which the property is located and age of the area.

You have to study the title going backwards, starting with the most recent deed.

Source : Straico AI. Prompt : Searching Deeds in the File Cabinet

What are you looking for?

Were the minerals reserved in the deed of your land when it was purchased from <previous owner>?

No? Keep going.

Next, locate the grantee deed in which the <previous owner> family was named.

The <previous owner> family bought the land from the <the owner before that> family. Go through that deed.

You have to go back through all the deeds to find the info you are seeking.

Because in order for the land to be separated from the minerals legally, it must have been reserved at some point.

If you find a deed where all oil, gas, and other minerals are “reserved”, then you will know that the surface and minerals have been separated and all subsequent sales of the surface land will not include minerals.

Deeds will state that the Grantor is conveying all rights, titles, and interests. But understand that if the grantor does not own the minerals, then the Grantor is conveying the surface only.

So you have to examine all deeds to make sure that none of them explicitly reserved the minerals.

If you do not find any reservation, this might mean that the property was never separated from the minerals.

One More Thing

You still need to contact the local government, as sometimes there are statutes and other legal actions that separated the land from the surface property by writ of law, which might not be recorded on the deed.

There are also other laws which might have done the opposite, and recombined the two real properties.

Check your state for a Dormant Minerals Act. Some states have enacted legislation that automatically recombines the surface and the minerals if the minerals have been un-unused for a period of time, or allows the owner to extinguish the mineral interests.

Such as in my state WA, where we have a 20 Year Statute

Chapter 78.22 RCW: EXTINGUISHMENT OF UNUSED MINERAL RIGHTS
Extinguishment of unused mineral rights authorized. "Mineral interest" defined. Acts constituting use of mineral…app.leg.wa.gov

If this is the case, that might be good news for you. As any reservation on the deed becomes voided if its over a certain age, and you have total ownership interest to the minerals!

Once you have determined if you ownership of the minerals on your land you can decide how you want to approach profiting from it.

Do not be surprised if you do not own the minerals on the land you own.

It is not very common anymore.

If you are one of the rare lucky ones, the next step is to determine if there are any minerals on the property and how you want to profit from them.

This is kind of like Jed Clampett finding oil.

Source : Beverly Hillbillies Season 1 Episode 1.

You would need to hire a qualified geologist or mineral rights attorney to evaluate your property and provide expert advice on it’s investment / sale potential.

Then if prospects look good, expect offers.

If you are this lucky, you might not end up mining or extracting.

You may choose to do that, but many people would be happy selling off, depending on the circumstance.

Companies will be interested in land that retains minerals, and will be interested in making an offer if you are willing to sell.

Because everything I have described in this chapter is a very uncommon scenario, let’s move onto more common and accessible ways to enter this niche.

Continue to the Next Story in this series: