on today's show we'll answer the question what are mineral rights ah the legal mire of mineral rights fascinating mineral rights are extremely important if you're buying land or buying a home and it's something that a lot of people don't know anything about i didn't mineral rights are basically when the ownership of the surface of the land and the ownership of the oil and minerals underground belong to two different people isn't that crazy like someone you can be living on your property but someone can own what's under your feet now the mineral rights are going to be broken up into a separate deed and the thing that makes this kind of iffy is the fact that when this happens when the surface rights are separated from the mineral rights you don't necessarily know where the course of the other deed has gone so when you get your deed it won't necessarily say oh so this is the person who owns your mineral rights it won't tell you that no exactly so they're both completely separate and you actually have to do some research to get information on either one of them now when you go to buy land or you go to buy a house you will be able to find out the history of that house you'll be able to find out the history of that land because the realtor and the escrow company the titling company they can look up all that information for you but they don't typically look up all the information on the mineral owner now that there's a third type of owner isn't there there's also a royalty owner royalty owners are basically people who are entitled to a share of the profits if anybody does mining for the minerals but they don't have the right to actually start mining so basically they're like i want what's underground but i don't want to do the work is what that owner does kind of yeah so they'll have a share of the profit but they don't have to do any of the work so between these three of surface owners mineral owners and royalty owners you have to know what it is that you own if you're going to purchase land for a house and it'll say that right on the d right exactly there is a very specific part of the deed which will let you know whether or not you own everything you might be the surface owner the mineral owner and the royalty owner or it will let you know if it's been divided up mineral rights hashtag it's complicated i hate myself for saying that many homeowners presume that buying property means you own everything above and below the surface of your land sometimes you do this is called fee simple ownership right however this type of ownership is frequently not the case in many parts of the country there are hundreds of thousands of acres of land that have been subjected to several ability which means the rights to the surface of the land are held in one deed and the rights to the oil and natural gas and other minerals in the subsurface are in a different deed and owned by someone else so understandably property owners obviously start to get pretty nervous and even angry when they hear about these laws excuse me you're telling me strangers can just march onto my land and put an oil well in and they don't have to pay me anything and i have no legal recourse to stop them there have been quite a few cases where companies have tried to start mining in neighborhoods where the homeowners didn't even know that they had no mineral rights there was at least one petition in texas to have severability declared unconstitutional since the surface owner has to pay taxes on the land but the mineral owner isn't paying taxes on the subsurface there could indeed be some merit to that claim on those grounds taxation without representation is unconstitutional now all of this sounds like some evil dystopian nightmare but don't worry it's usually not as bad as it sounds the united states is one of the only countries in the world which grants mineral rights to the citizens in many nations the mineral rights are owned by the governments obviously it's a lot better for individuals to own these rights than it is for a governing body plus there are a huge amount of caveats and stipulations to these laws which could make it impossible for the mineral owner to just brush the surface owner aside and start drilling in california the code of civil procedure section 772 stipulates that the mineral owner can have their permission to enter a property revoked if more than 20 years have passed and no mining has ever been started now according to california civil code section 883 a mineral owner can have their rights revoked completely if they haven't made any mining efforts for 20 years california civil code section 848 also stipulates a mineral owner must notify a surface owner in writing at least five days before entering the property they must also specify when they will enter how long they will stay and what work will be done failure to do this gives the surface owner the right to have a court block the mineral owner until the mineral owner complies with all the laws additionally most counties and states have laws that an oil well must be located anywhere from 150 to 600 feet from a street or a house in that case even though a mineral owner legally owns the minerals under your property he might not be legally permitted to extract them according to california public resource code section 3600 any oil or gas well must be at least 100 feet from a street or parcel border so if your parcel isn't even big enough that could keep you safe from anybody mining on that property as well right so there's also a possibility that the mineral owner might own hundreds of acres around your property so if they do decide to start drilling or excavating on your land they could build a well a mile away from your property and you'd never be disturbed by their operations at all most important of all is the simple fact that extracting minerals is very expensive and most properties aren't going to be sitting on top of valuable minerals anyway so how do you know if you own the mineral rights to your own land well if the mineral rights are not even mentioned on your deed then you are a fee simple owner and you own 100 of the surface rights and mineral rights for example i am both the surface owner and a royalty owner on my property the legal description on my deed specifies the location of the land i own and it adds quote except they're from 25 of all oil and mineral rights but without the right of surface entry as set out indeed recorded january 21 1965 in book 6315 page 228 of official records now this is rather unusual because it only removes 25 percent of my ownership of the mineral rights now remember unless your deed states otherwise the surface owner holds 100 percent of the mineral rights since my deed specifies and except from the land 25 percent of those rights that means conversely i still own the remaining 75 of the mineral rights now oddly enough the caveat of without the right of surface entry makes me a royalty owner not a mineral owner so rarely does a royalty owner have a greater stake in the profits than a mineral owner but i'm an exception to the rule now this raises a question i never heard anyone ask in all my research what if the surface owner wants to install an oil well and he doesn't own the mineral rights or what if the surface owner also happens to be a royalty owner royalty owners are ordinarily barred from accessing the minerals but could a surface owner install an oil well and collect his percentage of profits as a royalty owner that's unlikely because the rights of mineral owners supersede the rights of service owners since a royalty owner is kind of a sub-category of mineral owner it's likely the law would rule that subsurface restrictions will also supersede the surface permissions once you start looking into it the lutherville setup is actually really great because it's an ideal way to safeguard the land most likely lutherville is set up this way because it's zoned as a resource conservation area and the severa ability is intended to discourage mining and drilling operations think about it as a royalty owner eric is forbidden to start mining for minerals nevertheless he owns 75 percent of the mineral rights so if the designated mineral owner tried to come in and start drilling they would have to pay eric 75 of their profits obviously this is a smart way to legally protect the land from being exploited i don't know the specifics of the parcels of land around me but i wouldn't be surprised if they were all set up this way with the intention to preserve the landscape see by stopping the surface owners of their right to mine but forcing mineral owners to sacrifice a majority of their profits it assures no one is going to mind those properties as you can see this contingency of surface rights and mineral rights and royalty rights on my land is actually a very good thing this approach actually benefits the land by discouraging mining operations although because you didn't discuss any of this with a real estate lawyer your interpretation may be totally wrong there is that possibility too lutherville is an educational series inspiring kids and adults to become excited about innovations in science and technology by documenting the design and construction of a mojave desert homestead called galatea meridian witness the crazy story of how eric must barnes an unemployed computer geek and struggling novelist risks homelessness by spending most of his life savings to build an off-grid dream house in the middle of nowhere having purchased vast acres of the old west can eric find a stable job and create his home before his money runs out take a journey where fortitude and a pioneering spirit continue to forge the american dream on the romantic landscape of the american frontier thanks so much for watching this episode of lutherville please be sure to share this episode with your family and friends and remember your ambitions don't scare you they're not big 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