[ellebeaux]

All that said, I don't think its really a very common problem in MT.

Gary
www.BuildItSolar.com

Thanks Gary, I guess I see those ads in Countryside magazine for acres of land in WY and MT and wonder if they are really as good of a deal as they seem. I lived in Billings for 4 years and fell in love with Montana so my long-term goal is build off-grid somewhere near where I can make a living. Missoula or Bozeman. Red Lodge? So I was thinking to buy some land now and just hold onto it until I could afford to move out there. But I didn't want to show up and find it all dug up!

I'll look up that mining issue - that's VERY interesting. I'll be curious to see how that all turns out.

 

[antiquestuff]

Sounds like you're a real expert on real estate, AS. Good luck finding ANY land at ALL with full mineral rights. With your attitude, unfortunately you will probably never own land. BTW, diagonal and horizontal drilling may be going on underneath you right now.

Well, in your area maybe, but in other states it is easier to do so.

 

[ET1 SS]

My place in Ca does have water 'issues'.

My property in Ct, includes it's mineral rights.

As does my property in Me. though our place in Me has a long fuel pipe buried and running across it [it goes from Searsport Me to Loring].

 

[Gary in ohio]

You need to know what rights were given away and what can be done with those rights. I have no mineral rights on my place. Oil and Gas are the minerals being harvested in my area. The rights given on my property was for right to the minimals, NOT for rights for any surface access. Those are seperate rights. They have no rights to put an oil well on my property, they have no right to even be on my property. I can negotiate a seperate rights if I wanted them drilling on my land but they dont have it by default.

KNow what rights your given or have been given.

 

[ET1 SS]

You need to know what rights were given away and what can be done with those rights. ... Those are seperate rights. ... they have no right to even be on my property. I can negotiate a seperate rights if I wanted them drilling on my land but they dont have it by default.

KNow what rights your given or have been given.

Good ideas!

I would throw a small monkey wrench into it though.

We have always had 'emminent domain'. anytime that a developer can convince a judge that it would serve a 'higher purpose' to take your land and do something else with if. I have seen examples of 'emminent domain being used for many years.

Recently their have been new arguing in the courts about it, but the rulings have been to 're-affirm' and even more solidly the procedure for using eminent domain to take your land away.

To argue that ripping up an open pit to make greater access to minerals: would employ more people, would bring greater tax flow to the city and county, would lessen the nationwide prices for those minerals and would thus stimulate the nationwide economy, I would think that any judge in the nation would hand over your land in a heart-beat.

I dont mean this as an attack, judges would give away my land too.

Judges gave away my grandfather's farm back in 1970, so a 'vacation homes' developement could be built in it's place.

 

[rafter]

You aren't going to find any land out west with mineral rights unless you are buying an actual mining claim. They were all sold out years ago. Especially if you are buying a property in a development. Most of these out west were once large ranches. When bought by a developer..the mineral rights were sold (to pad the pockets of the developer even more ). Keep in mind if you are buying something in the neighborhood of 35 acres or less, more than likely it is in a development.

As to water rights. You have the right to obtain a well permit and dig a well, depending on the size of your acreage if you can use it as a domestic well (for household use only) or one that you can actually use to water livestock. (In Colorado you need min. 35 acres for this type of well)
If you have running water (stream, creek, river) You can buy water rights in "shares" if you can find someone to sell them to you. You can then use that water for irrigation or whatever.

 

[wr]

The issue of mineral rights isn't as simple as it sounds here. Usually there are a few types of 'minerals', you have coal interests, oil & gas & others (usually including ores). If you own surface and someone else owns minerals, you continue to have rights. You have the right to be compensated for access to minerals through your surface, you have the right to proper and complete resotration of your land after the play is made and you are entitled to annual rental on the demised lands. It's nice to own your minerals but if you don't, make very sure you know your rights as a surface owner before you allow someone to just come onto your land to do as they will, you'll be offered a contract, read it carefully and know what your rights are in. Most mineral plays can be shut down fairly quickly in the event the lands are historically significant, ecologicaly sensative and a few other reasons. Look into all matters before you sign anything or accept the word of anyone as fact.

 

[highlands]

One word: Eeek!

 

[lewbest]

"Just this afternoon a representative from an oil and gas exploration company came to our door and sat down at our table to inquire about leasing our mineral rights. "Everybody's doing it" around us, so why not?"

I'd lease it in a heartbeat! If they're after you to lease it you have the mineral rites! They do their research; don't make offers to folks without the rites. I had a place that I sold a few years ago; leased it for gas twice; money in the bank! When I sold it I retained half the mineral rites; buyer wouldn't buy unless I let him have half. no way was I letting go of all of them though!

Lew

 

[Mike in Ohio]

I can only speak based on my personal experience. We own all mineral rights except for a specific deep coal seam (It's about 600-800 feet below the surface). We didn't know who the current holders were for those coal rights.

If you had a fairly recent title search done then it shouldn't cost you much to have a title search done on the mineral rights. It cost us $150 to have one of our parcels searched (The coal rights were split off before the land was subdivided). We are currently looking into buying back the coal rights for 154 acres (that was the size of the farm when the rights were sold). This is part of a "parcel" that includes 1,000 acres of land and 16,000 acres of coal rights. They said I was the first person that has contacted them and if I'm at the edge of their holding we might be able to work something out.

It also helps to know the state regulations. In Ohio you need at least 20 acres to site a gas or oil well and there are additional restrictions as far as setbacks from property lines, etc. We know that our gas (primarily) and oil rights are worth something but we don't feel any hurry to lease. I'm more interested in free gas than the royalties and until we are at the farm fulltime we don't really need it.

Mineral rights are not a generic. One parcel might be very valuable because there is something there. Another parcel might not have any minerals worth talking about.

I guess my attitude is that if you buy property and someone else owns the mineral rights then you need to respect their ownership rights as much as you expect them to respect yours. Also understand that many mineral rights are held by corporations and their timescales are a little different than for individuals. They might have bought those rights 10 years ago planning to do something with them 20 years in the future based on their capital development planning.

As usual, just my 2 cents worth.

Mike

 

[Michael W. Smith]

How do you know if you own the mineral rights? We moved from our McMansion and I know that we didn't own the mineral rights because it plainly appeared in our title document. However, I have read through our title on our farm and I can't see anything about the mineral rights. Would there be specific verbiage to look for? We have the history of the land/house since 1860 when it was deeded from the government. Would there be a point where it says that the property was sold but not the mineral rights? Would the title indicate who does own the rights if, in fact, we do not?

Thanks for the info in advance...

T

Get the tax number off of your tax form and go to the tax claim bureau probably in your local courthouse. Ours has each township divided up in a filing cabinet with cards that have the tax number on. Usually the minerals are like a -1 or -A after the tax number. Your tax claim bureau should be able to tell you if you own the mineral rights or who does.

 

[ellebeaux]

Thanks all for your views and insights: when it comes time to buy I'll be a little more knowledgeable!

Beaux

 

[SteveD(TX)]

Appraisal of real estate, and dealing with eminent domain have been my profession for 23 years. I think people may be confused by all of the different responses and comments here.

1). All states are not equal. Some don't have a public office where you can go and find out the mineral rights ownership on your land. It usually takes an extensive title search.

2). If 100% of the mineral rights are available on the land you buy - Celebrate!! You are in the HUGE minority. But realize that if this is the case, there probably aren't any minerals, surface, sub-surface, or otherwise, or any other type of recoverable resource on your land that anyone will ever be interested in. If there were, the mineral rights would have been sold off (most at least) a LONG time before you came along.

3). Eminent domain does NOT mean that the government or corporations "take away" or "give away" your land. The Constitution requires that "just compensation" be paid for any land or property rights taken be paid for a full fair market value. In the hundreds of cases I've been involved with, the condemning authority more often than not, paid MORE than market value, allowing the property owner to upgrade their living situation, etc. Without eminent domain, there would be no roads, no public utilities, no power plants, etc.. I'm not saying there aren't abuses. Of course there are. But "eminent domain" is not entirely the huge evil that some people are led to believe. More like a necessary evil I guess (usually!!). The exception of course would be building sports stadiums, helping developers assemble land for development, etc. I don't agree with these abuses at all. But if you're living in a $150K house, and the local quasi-governmental sports authority ends up giving you $200K ......