Looking for 10 to 20 acres of land, in Texas, to settle down on and make my home. Looking primarily out in far west Texas as I would rather be away from people than packed in with a bunch of other 10 to 20 acre populated plots. I understand the basics, water etc., but am worried about mineral rights. Not many opportunities include mineral rights and I am worried that if I do not have that control someone who does can have a say in whether my land gets drilled or mined or otherwise. Does not having the mineral rights to your property allow someone else to say yup go ahead and strip mine that ore or drill a bunch of wells?
Edit to add does saying no then make you liable for the lost revenue of the minerals or gas or oil?

ShouldastayedataTm said:

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Looking for 10 to 20 acres of land, in Texas, to settle down on and make my home. Looking primarily out in far west Texas as I would rather be away from people than packed in with a bunch of other 10 to 20 acre populated plots. I understand the basics, water etc., but am worried about mineral rights. Not many opportunities include mineral rights and I am worried that if I do not have that control someone who does can have a say in whether my land gets drilled or mined or otherwise. Does not having the mineral rights to your property allow someone else to say yup go ahead and strip mine that ore or drill a bunch of wells?
Edit to add does saying no then make you liable for the lost revenue of the minerals or gas or oil?

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Mineral rights holder can do whatever they want to extract said minerals - to the best of my knowledge.

You dont get to say "no"

The deed on my 1 acre lot says that "the grantor retains the mineral rights ........but does not reserve or retain implied rights of ingress and egress and of reasonable use of the property......."

My understanding of this is that they cannot extract minerals from the surface of my lot.

I might have 10 or 20 acres in Hudspeth County, Texas. If interested let me know your email.

Thanks!

Surface owners do have rights, but it would be unlikely that a company would put a pad or facility on a small 10-20 acre surface rights only tract as most pads at a minimum are 4-5 acres. Then if that occurs as the surface owner you are owed rights for surface damages/usage. As far as being able to limit subsurface production or activity you have zero ability to do that being a surface owner. Also there are some limitations to how close pads/flairs/certain equipment can be to dwellings. Simply put no a company cannot come in and easily force you to allow them to put a pad on your surface just to produce the minerals below. Especially since your surface is only 10-20 acres. Notice I said easily as there are situations where large mineral leases have been chopped up on the surface which doesn't easily allow for pad placement. In that case the company would have a legal right to produce and would be able to file suit on some properties to allow surface impacts with just compensation.

Do you get the property at a reduced rate with no mineral rights? Do you get them at some point, of is it forever? The concept is just hard for me to wrap my head around.

If you find an area you like you can check for production, permitted well, dry holes, etc. on the Railroad Commissions GIS portal, which can give you at least a basic understanding of what is going on.

You can also hunt down the mineral owner of a tract you want to buy if it isn't the seller and buy a very small undivided interest which would protect your surface ownership.

The answer is - Depends on the transaction - everything is negotiable.

IMO a property that has mineral rights with no activity should we worth more than one that had the mineral rights severed.

Example 1: family farm land that I purchased, the mineral rights (which were producing) was discounted since the family members kept them.

Example 2: sold a duplex lot that still had mineral rights which I stripped and receive mailbox money about once a year.

Milwaukees Best Light said:

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Do you get the property at a reduced rate with no mineral rights? Do you get them at some point, of is it forever? The concept is just hard for me to wrap my head around.

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In Texas a mineral reservation creates a separate estate that is real property and can be sold, traded, handed down to heirs just like the surface estate. Some states have what is called prescription, where if the minerals aren't leased/drilled after a certain time frame the minerals revert to the surface owner, the specifics vary from state to state as do the deadlines but we don't do that in Texas.

Email is in my profile. Details are always desired.

A purchaser of land, any size acreage, can ask for a "surface use waiver", from the the existing lease holder (assuming a lease exists). It may or may not be granted, but if the land in question does not adversely effect future mineral production, much more likely.
If the land is not currently leased, the purchaser can often obtain "surface control", nothing to do with the minerals per se, but it prevents activity on the specified tract surface.

AggieGunslinger said:

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Milwaukees Best Light said:

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Do you get the property at a reduced rate with no mineral rights? Do you get them at some point, of is it forever? The concept is just hard for me to wrap my head around.

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In Texas a mineral reservation creates a separate estate that is real property and can be sold, traded, handed down to heirs just like the surface estate. Some states have what is called prescription, where if the minerals aren't leased/drilled after a certain time frame the minerals revert to the surface owner, the specifics vary from state to state as do the deadlines but we don't do that in Texas.

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But not subject to property tax if the minerals are not producing.

Correct, free to own until they produce.

AggieGunslinger said:

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Correct, free to own until they produce.

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Has always confused me as to why that is the case. If your surface is "unused" (ex: no ag exemption) your property tax is way higher than it is after you put livestock on the property.
I guess it can be chalked up to the same reason most things associated with government that don't make sense are: special interests and corrupt politicians and bureaucrats.

Because the govt can't value what they don't know is there

redaszag99 said:

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Because the govt can't value what they don't know is there

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Many "govts" attempt to do so with real property…forcing you to protest and prove otherwise. Govts can do whatever they're big enough to get away with!

rab79 said:

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AggieGunslinger said:

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Correct, free to own until they produce.

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Has always confused me as to why that is the case. If your surface is "unused" (ex: no ag exemption) your property tax is way higher than it is after you put livestock on the property.
I guess it can be chalked up to the same reason most things associated with government that don't make sense are: special interests and corrupt politicians and bureaucrats.

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How are you going to assess the value without production? You wouldn't even know what is down there.

Speaking as a far west Texas native have you ever lived in far west Texas? If so carry on. If not I think you have a lot of other things to consider besides this.

jja79: You sir are CORRECT!!! Forty year resident of Midland. Traveled all of West Texas and SE New Mexico in the oilfield. Ya better spend more than a weekend in say Jal, Pecos or Kermit and THEN decide you cannot wait to live in West Texas. Preferably in the Spring when the gentle zephyrs blow!!

Like any other real property, you look at recent sales.

Mark Fairchild said:

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jja79: You sir are CORRECT!!! Forty year resident of Midland. Traveled all of West Texas and SE New Mexico in the oilfield. Ya better spend more than a weekend in say Jal, Pecos or Kermit and THEN decide you cannot wait to live in West Texas. Preferably in the Spring when the gentle zephyrs blow!!

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Was just in the mountains north of Fort Davis for a week guiding aoudad hunters and cooking at the spike camp. The sustained winds were around 35-40 with gusts of 55-60 up top where we stayed. The guys from Houston we had there were being driven insane by the wind. They talked about how they wouldn't be able to take it constantly blowing like that. Admittedly, it was brutal, even for someone who lives in the Lipan Flats east of San Angelo where the wind constantly blows. The last few weeks have been incredibly windy.

Appreciate all the responses and yes there are a lot of much more important things to consider before pulling the trigger on land out there. The environmental factors I get, and can deal with long term. What I don't want to deal with is getting things the way I like them and some who knows what that owns the mineral rights decides they want to mine the place or drill for oil and gas because it is the next Shackleford type find. If the surface owner has no true input, then I need to make sure I find a place where I can get the mineral rights as well. Maybe it is east Texas or south Texas. Regardless of environment I just want to be free of risk for someone else getting to punch holes in or strip mine my slice of heaven.

rab79 said:

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Like any other real property, you look at recent sales.

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Except there is simply not enough data for non-producing mineral interests to compare to.

Texas really f'd up on high fences and separation of surface and mineral rights.

I have heard that in Louisiana, the mineral ownership goes to the surface owner IF there has been no mineral production on the property the preceding 10 years.

Is this true?

There is always the difference in price of land sold with and without mineral interest. If there was a push to tax non producing minerals a way would be found to value them. If they have no value then why were they severed in the first place?

The value is potential, which is speculative. In many, even most cases, cash value is never realized.

Not trying to rain on your parade but my family lived in Balmorhea, Van Horn, Pecos and Fort Stockton so I think covered a lot of far west Texas. This is just me but I don't think 10-20 acres out there would be appealing. I spent the night in FS 2 weeks ago. As others have mentioned the wind blew so hard it was a trick staying in my lane coming in from the west. Not sure what you consider far west Texas though.

Mas89 said:

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I have heard that in Louisiana, the mineral ownership goes to the surface owner IF there has been no mineral production on the property the preceding 10 years.

Is this true?

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I don't know about Lousyana but most states have a restriction on the number of years and then the minerals revert back to the surface owner.

Unfortunately, we don't have that in Texas. It makes for a terrible mess. I just signed division orders on some property my grandfather once owned an interest. My interest is 0.0000000001.

Not sure about timeframe but yes, Louisiana has the state law that minerals revert to land owner if the mineral option is not exercised in a certain time frame. But that doesn't mean exploration has to occur (I don't think).

Ah yes, speculators.... the bane of many a market.

Minerals trump surface. If you don't own the minerals you are at risk. Judon Fambrough is always a good read on this subject.

https://www.tlma.org/assets/docs/HintsonNegotiating.pdf

Yes, that is correct -- at least it was the case 6 years ago when I left the state.

Judon Frambrough is the man when it comes to all things related to land and the ranch.

rab79 said:

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Ah yes, speculators.... the bane of many a market.

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No, speculative as in guesswork.

It would be like getting an appraisal on a property based on the following description:

20 acres.
A structure (maybe).