I own a small piece of land, about a half acre in the suburbs around Salt Lake City. Say, one day diggin’ a hole for a garden, I come across a small lump of gold. I keep quiet, because I don’t want the neighborhood to try to come in and steal it. A little later, I keep digging, and find a bigger one. Then dig more, and a bigger one. I reckon I’ve got a vein in my backyard.
Now, by this time, I can afford some security to keep neighbors out of my stuff. What mineral rights do I normally have in a suburban setting in the US?
Assuming I can do my own digging (i.e. notwithstanding the engineering requirements of a professional mine), how far down can I keep digging?
If I’ve got a mortgage, can the bank just decide to foreclose on me based on the potential value of the mineral find in the backyard? Can the city decide to come in and take it through eminent domain?
Tell me about ‘staking a claim’. . . I don’t think I need to do that on my own land, do I?
How far do my rights go, typically speaking? I understand certain jurisdictions have their nuances. . .
Tripler
This is not a “need help now!” thread. I wouldn’t tell you if it were anyway.
Large scale natural gas mineral rights owner speaking. You are talking about a few different things. In most of the U.S., land rights are separate from mineral rights. You can own the surface rights to the land and build your house on it yet not own any of the minerals below ground. Those are often bundled together but always.
My family owns tens of thousands of acres of mineral rights across Northern Louisiana and East Texas thanks to some foresight from my ancestors. Other people have houses and property on that land yet we have full drilling rights and they get nothing from it. Granted, it is a crappy situation to be in if your house happens to sit on top of huge natural gas deposit but that is the way the U.S. law works. Mineral rights owners own everything from the sub-sufrace to the center of the earth but that isn’t the case in most countries.
Here is the answer to your questions as they apply to the U.S.
To the center of the earth. It is yours legally speaking.
No, whoever the mineral rights owner is owns it.
That is all about mineral rights too. I don’t know much about Old West style mining. It was/is a thing but based on unclaimed land.
As far as I know, when you purchase property you own the mineral rights unless otherwise specified in the deed. You may have those rights down to the center of the earth. But there may be issues involving aquifiers. There are certainly mining regulations that would apply. The bank can’t foreclose as long as you are paying your mortgage. The city can use eminent domain to take anything they want, but you would be due fair value which is pretty high for a gold mine.
My experience is limited to owning a few residential properties and investigating others. There could be all sorts of exceptions in any locality.
How common is it for a suburban property to have mineral rights that go with it? Unless there are more people than I’d think likely who even think about mineral rights under their suburban home, why would the developer not sell the mineral rights separately for a few extra bucks?
Most people don’t think about it. They usually get bundled together by default but certainly not always. If the mineral rights got separated from the surface rights legally at any point in history, nobody would care until something is found underground. That is when the drama starts. If you own the mineral rights to a property, you can put a oil or gas rig straight in someone’s back yard or pasture. There is little they can do about it.
That is a major issue in Northern Louisiana these days since they found the biggest natural gas deposit in the U.S. in the Haynesville Shale. The people that have to put up with the wells don’t always get any money from it even in suburbia because they didn’t pay attention closely enough when they bought their property.
Most developers don’t unbundle the mineral rights from property rights on purpose because the vast majority of mineral rights are worthless. There isn’t much of a market for speculation that makes it worthwhile but sometimes people get surprised.
A minor but important correction to Shagnasty’s informative post:
In all common law jurisdictions, fee simple ownership of real property gives you full rights to everything related to that land except sovereignty and whatever may be prohibited by land use regulations of the relevant juridictions.
That said, Shag is 100% correct that in large parts of the U.S., the mineral rights (or a part of them) have been detached from the surface rights and are typically owned by investors (e.g., Shag’s family) or corporate interests,
My parents own a suburban house in the USA and this doesn’t seem right as they are under a homeowners association, which would strongly object to a rig. In fact they would shortly begin legal proceeding to take their property if the rig was not removed. But wait if they don’t own the mineral rights what could the HOA do even if they took the property?
There would have to be something in the deed which limits their ability to put up an oil rig or exploit the mineral rights, or local regulations limiting that. I don’t recall any details but I’m sure there has to be a reference in the deed to any limits of the rights to the land. But it could be an innocuous term of art that only a lawyer would be able to recognize. It really isn’t much of an issue here in the northeast because slant drilling for dirt and glacial deposit isn’t much of a moneymaker, though in oil and gas country it’s important, and it’s an issue involved in the practice of fracking for natural gas.
I think you’ve both basically answered my initial question. Given that I’ve bought this house, how would I go about seeing if my mineral rights were separated from my surface rights? I assume it has to be explicitly spelled out in the deed (or previous ones), and if not, I have them . . . correct? (This is what the title research is for?)
With that, say I also have a parcel out in an Eastern part of the US, where we could theoretically trace land ownership back to the Crown of England. Are there regions in the US that traditionally have mineral/surface rights unbundled?
So, Shag, since your ancestors did do their due diligence, what constitutes the beginning of your mineral rights? Six inches down beneath grade? 5 feet above Mean Sea Level (which determines the start based on local topographical elevation at the surface)? Also, what surface-access rights do your mineral rights give ya? I assume you can’t just bring in an auger into someone’s backyard and start drilling all willy-nilly without compensating them for the loss (even temporarily) of their acreage.
Tripler
This is interesting stuff. . . at least to me. Mundane to most, but I’m getting out a shovel tomorrow.
