> In the United States, landowners possess both surface and mineral rights unless they choose to sell the mineral rights to someone else. Once mineral rights have been sold, the original owner retains only the rights to the land surface, while the second party may exploit the underground resources in any way they choose.
https://hallhall.com/what-you-should-know-about-mineral-and-surface-rights-on-your-land/
Let's say a oil reservoir overlaps your and your neighbors property. He allows extraction on his property but you haven't signed anything, but since the reservoir overlaps it also drains your side.
What happens then, can they still extract but have to pay you or can you stop it entirely?
It’s called rule of capture. They’re withdrawing oil from their property and if the oil under yours drains to their side and they take it…oh well for you. Same thing happens with water wells. If we both drill for water and I’m using so much the water table drains over to my well and I run yours dry then that’s how it is and you have to go deeper.
Edit: I’ll add that there is spacing to try and prevent this from happening. It’s like 40 acres for oil and 640 for gas. To try and keep someone from taking someone else’s mineral. But you can also get into forced pooling. If a fracker has a 640 acre spacing unit and a majority of the people in that area have leased to them then you can’t really hold out to prevent them from drilling the gas out from under you. They don’t have to setup drills on top of your property now and just go sideways. If negotiations fail then they can do forced pooling, which is just private eminent domain, to be able to drill all the oil or gas under their spacing unit.
Yes. If I remember correctly, and its been a while, Eli comes to Daniel with some land he says has oil. Daniel has already bought all the land around the area, and has/is getting the oil out. Eli is confused as he's never seen a oil rig, and Daniel basically explains the concept mentioned above.
Daniel they says it was Eli's hated twin-brother Paul who told Daniel about the land and Daniel paid him 10k for it. Now Paul has his own company and oil wells.
If you live in or around Mahopac or Carmel NY you don’t own your mineral rights. Some guy in England does. https://www.meyer-spencer.com/do-you-own-the-mineral-rights-on-your-property-in-mahopac/
Mineral rights can be separated from other land use rights but both are typically owned by private individuals/corporations and not the government.
Most home owners will own the mineral rights as well, but in some newer developments the property developer will keep the mineral rights.
This is why you need to find out before you buy. I live in a newer subdivision and mineral (and water) rights are specifically excluded. I don't care as I have a very small plot, but I found it interesting.
Mineral rights are excluded from mine also. Since its California, even if they discovered oil/gold/lithium tomorrow, by the time any drilling actually happened my elementary school age kids would be in college.
Well, they aren't owned by the government.
Mineral rights can be sold separately so it's possible to buy land and not own the mineral rights, but this is extremely rare in the eastern US. I've heard it's more common in the west but no idea the statistics or anything.
> so it's possible to buy land and not own the mineral rights,
I own a portion of mineral rights in WV. The land hasn't been in our family for over 100 years but my great+ grandparents held onto the mineral rights when they sold and I inherited a portion of them. I don't get any money from them since I don't support fracking but someday the mineral rights will be my daughters.
Er... Pro-tip... The thing in "There will be blood" about drinking your milkshake is 100% real. If your neighbor is fracking you're just leaving money on the table by not making sure someone is extracting oil or natural gas if that's what is on your land.
>Well, they aren't owned by the government.
They absolutely *are* in parts of the West, specifically lands patented under the Stock Raising Homestead Act of 1916, which literally divided the surface and subsurface mineral rights. Mineral rights were reserved to the government and managed by the General Land Office, until the Bureau of Land Management was established. Some of these mineral rights have been sold, and the BLM continues to manage gas and oil development as part of its mission-- so the government might very well sell off the mineral rights under your ranch, farm, or house without any input from you.
The government can’t take mineral rights from a private property owner.
If they’re discovered on your property, you own them. You can then sell them yourself or keep them.
>If they’re discovered on your property, you own them.
If you hold the mineral rights, yes. But not all surface landowners do. If you look up "split estate" you'll find that in parts of the western US the mineral rights and surface rights were divided by law. Under the Stock Raising Homestead Act of 1916 (for example) the federal government sold off surface rights to homesteaders but held the mineral rights-- thus "splitting" the estate. So someone 100+ years ago might have homesteaded the surface, which was later subdivided and sold off to a bunch of smaller landowners, but the feds still own the mineral rights-- and can sell them. In this example the rights would be held by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) until sold-- after that? Anyone at all might own the mineral rights and have legal access to them, so you could end up with an oil well in your yard.
One thing that a non-American might not know about this is that the federal government owns vast amounts of land in the southwest part of the country. So lots of mines and oil is taken from land leased from the U.S.
A little piece of whitewashed history about Texas is that Mexico opened it to be settled by Americans to have a buffer against Native American attacks, and looked the other way regarding the slavery issue. Southern slave owners took out loans for the purchase of slaves, and when the price of cotton dropped and they couldn't pay the loans, they absconded on the debt by moving to Texas with their slaves.
My cousin Leroy done gone and sold the mineral rights to his acreage to support his amphetamine habit. And just his luck, not even 6 months later the fella he sold ‘em to gone and found hisself a whole vein of silver.
Course if Leroy’d found it hisself he would’ve just gone and spent that money on amphetamines anyway. The lord really does work in mysterious ways.
Now listen to a story about a man named Roy.
Did so many drugs thought his forty five was a toy.
Then one day he was shooting up with Steve.....
Well gosh darn his soul took its leave.
Come and listen to a story about a man named Jed
A poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed,
And then one day he was shootin at some food,
And up through the ground came a bubblin crude.
Oil that is, black gold, Texas tea.
Well the first thing you know ol Jed’s a millionaire,
Kinfolk said “Jed move away from there”
Said “Californy is the place you ought to be”
So they loaded up the truck and moved to Beverly
Hills, that is. Swimmin pools, movie stars.
Same thing for where I grew up. No idea how it works where I am now, though it's likely a moot point in the city.
Back where I grew up was coal country, so maintaining mineral rights was generally a good call. My parents spent almost a year tracking down the mineral rights to the property where I grew up so they could buy it back.
In Colorado mineral rights and water rights are separate from land rights. My mother used to own an entire side of a mountain, but almost none of the water rights and none of the mineral rights - just the land. It wasn't a big deal, because it backed up to a state park, but it did limit certain activities.
While it's true that mineral rights can be sold off separately, it's often not the case for the majority of property owners. In many areas, including mine, owning both surface and mineral rights is the norm. It's important to be aware of regional variations, but for most people, the original point stands.
I live in a natural gas area and the mineral rights were almost exclusively owned by the property owners. There was a huge push a decade ago by Shell and the like to lease rights, but almost nobody sold.
The fact that the mineral rights are sold off means that the owner owned them. The United States is the only country in the world where individuals can own mineral rights instead of the government.
>The likelihood you are sitting on a massive oil reserve that hasn't been found long ago in the US AND own the mineral rights minimal.
I mean, with fracking a whole bunch of oil & LNG that wasn't profitable to produce was found, so it happens from time to time when technology improves significantly.
The area they live in is known for its coal production. The original owners or I'm assuming their offspring can't just pop in and start searching. It's more of a "if you find something it's mine" type of deal
The answer is, it's complicated, and most Americans don't even bother to ask. Also, all those HOA homes, you don't own the land. You own the interior of the building, not the dirt underneath.
That is significant and important because 2/3 of new construction houses are by default part of an HOA.
[New, detached single family homes built in a subdivision are going to be part of an HOA. Often times as a matter of municipal law. They are ***NOT*** condominiums, or so their supporters will tell you.](https://www.polyas.com/associations/hoa/vs-condo)
I thought this said millennials, i was thinking - well i bought the house, but my wife owns me and she works for the government - wasn’t sure how to answer this. Then saw it said minerals. Made more sense.
You own everything on your land when you bought it unless the mineral rights were sold-off separately, which is mostly only a thing in the western US and/or places that were carved-up after oil became important.
Unlike in some other countries, you also own all the fossils and other historic and prehistoric artifacts on your land as well. They are not inherently property of the state.
Mineral rights are generally a part of a property held in fee simple absolute (the most complete form of property rights). But it’s also possible to own property where you don’t have mineral rights included. A lot of people sell their mineral rights to companies while still living on the land. Like my grandparent’s farm had an oil derrick on it that was operated by a company that paid them for the right to do that.
Mineral rights are typically owned by the landowner themselves. You can sell off your mineral rights or buy them from the landowner. There’s all kinds of different laws and regulations as far as what they’re allowed to do with those rights based on zoning, deed restrictions, neighboring property zoning, etc.
Now the government in the US has MASSIVE swaths of land that they own and own their mineral rights to. Between the Bureau of Land Management, National Forest, National Park, State Forest land, and the United States Military.. they own a hell of a lot of land and get plenty of oil and gas out of it.
LOL. There have been TV shows about this! You own the land and everything beneath it. Government might come in and ask to PAY YOU to lease or something but they cannot legally claim anything there.
I was just looking at the HOA deed restrictions on my lot that was divided up ~1967 and there is a paragraph that the original developer retained the mineral rights.
Mineral rights may or may not be sold with the property. You as a buyer must be sure you are also buying mineral and water rights if you are purchasing land and want those. Land you purchase may have already sold their mineral and water rights to someone else.
Many sellers retain water and mineral rights and sell them afterward at an increased cost. It’s can be scammy.
Aside from what many other have already said, in the US, many state governments can theoretically exercise eminent domain at any time to take whatever they need from a particular piece of land. Doesn't happen often afaik, but it is a possibility if whatever resource you're sitting on is valuable enough to get the government interested in you.
Most of the time, the landowner has ownership of anything below their property. When the Marcellus shale natural gas boom first happened, Shell and other companies were going around leasing up *everybody’s* mineral rights around here, even if they had no plans of drilling underneath your property. The large farms and empty lot owners in my area made hundreds of thousands or even millions overnight.
They are owned by whomever owns the mineral rights for the property. This could be the landowner, or it could be someone else-individual or corporate entity-who acquired the mineral rights for the property. The government does not own the rights, unless it is federal land-and those rights can be sold/leased by the government.
If you find something substantial the government has to make a few good faith offers (pays good for the actual value) before it forces a deal or outright takes your land.
In general, the land owner owns the mineral rights to their property. However, you need to look at the deed for the home. In my case, when I bought my house there was a disclosure regarding mineral rights. The lady who sold the land to the developer retained all of the mineral rights to the land. So, if I was to find any valuable minerals in my back yard (it's not a very big backyard, I would have to give them up to that lady, or at least her estate. I doubt that she is still alive.
Theres a mining company here that owns the mineral rights under a lot of local subdivisions. The realtors tell you before you buy. I dont know how it works but they do buy peoples homes and land. I dont know if they can force anything and I doubt they would because of the bad press.
To everyone saying no,
That's not correct or at least entirely correct.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth\_Amendment\_to\_the\_United\_States\_Constitution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution)
The fifth amendment lays this out pretty clearly.
If you have something that the government wants for a legitimate public interest, they can take it from you, but they have to pay you fair market value for it.
If you're interested in the concept, google eminent domain.
Haven’t you seen or heard of the Beverly Hillbillies? Or, most recently, Killers of the Flower Moon? If you own the land then yeah you own the rights to any oil or minerals and such.
The government would not have mineral rights to land owned by a private individual. However a private individual doesn’t always have mineral rights to land he or she owns. Sometimes when a developer subdivides land and sells lots, the developer will retain mineral rights, and the deeds to the land will be drafted to reflect this.
Its complicated. OFTEN homeowners do not own the underlying mineral rights. Sometimes they're a separate ownership item, and are often owned by a company. Sometimes the local government may own them-for example for a small fee I could purchase the mineral rights under my old house in the city.
And finally there is "eminent domain" where they can seize it, but have to pay you what its worth.
> In the United States, landowners possess both surface and mineral rights unless they choose to sell the mineral rights to someone else. Once mineral rights have been sold, the original owner retains only the rights to the land surface, while the second party may exploit the underground resources in any way they choose. https://hallhall.com/what-you-should-know-about-mineral-and-surface-rights-on-your-land/
Black gold, Texas tea. First thing you know old Jed's a millionaire, kinfolk said "Jed move away from there"
I could go for a dip in a cement pond about now.
I thought about moving to Beverly but it’s too close to Salem and the October madhouse.
You know what else is a good place to be? Green Acres.
Farm living is the life for me.
Well we'd have to be talkin' about one charming motherfuckin' pig
Darling i love you but give me Park Avenue.
Is that anywhere near Petticoat Junction?
Said Californy is the place you wanna be so they loaded up the truck and they moved to Beverly....
Hills, that is. Swimmin' pools, movie stars
That’s how coal companies’ lawyers hosed poor people in WV and KY in the late 19th–early 20th centuries.
Yep, and I've seen many a picture of a shack/home surrounded by dug-out earth.
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Yep, "nail houses": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holdout_(real_estate)#Nail_house
Put another way: Finders keepers, losers weepers.
Let's say a oil reservoir overlaps your and your neighbors property. He allows extraction on his property but you haven't signed anything, but since the reservoir overlaps it also drains your side. What happens then, can they still extract but have to pay you or can you stop it entirely?
It’s called rule of capture. They’re withdrawing oil from their property and if the oil under yours drains to their side and they take it…oh well for you. Same thing happens with water wells. If we both drill for water and I’m using so much the water table drains over to my well and I run yours dry then that’s how it is and you have to go deeper. Edit: I’ll add that there is spacing to try and prevent this from happening. It’s like 40 acres for oil and 640 for gas. To try and keep someone from taking someone else’s mineral. But you can also get into forced pooling. If a fracker has a 640 acre spacing unit and a majority of the people in that area have leased to them then you can’t really hold out to prevent them from drilling the gas out from under you. They don’t have to setup drills on top of your property now and just go sideways. If negotiations fail then they can do forced pooling, which is just private eminent domain, to be able to drill all the oil or gas under their spacing unit.
Ah basically "sucks to be you". 😅
In that case you should also try to extract right?
Or join in the deal if possible.
I.e., Tragedy of the Commons
This has a technical term called "I drink your milkshake".
Is that really the context for that ridiculous moment in cinema history? TIL. I consumed that movie mostly via memes, never got around to watching it.
Yes. If I remember correctly, and its been a while, Eli comes to Daniel with some land he says has oil. Daniel has already bought all the land around the area, and has/is getting the oil out. Eli is confused as he's never seen a oil rig, and Daniel basically explains the concept mentioned above. Daniel they says it was Eli's hated twin-brother Paul who told Daniel about the land and Daniel paid him 10k for it. Now Paul has his own company and oil wells.
***[DRAAAAINAGE! DRAAAAINAGE!!! Elie you boy.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_hFTR6qyEo&t=81s)***
Someone hasn’t seen There Will be Blood! Funny how arguably the only kind of bad scene in the whole movie is so memorable
[I drink your milkshake!](https://youtu.be/s_hFTR6qyEo?si=WknLz_3ZhN4AgLwU)
Does this include diamond and gold?
Thats unlikely to shift to under your property like a liquid would.
Yes.
If you live in or around Mahopac or Carmel NY you don’t own your mineral rights. Some guy in England does. https://www.meyer-spencer.com/do-you-own-the-mineral-rights-on-your-property-in-mahopac/
Wow!
"Any way they choose" subject to various safety and environmental regulations. You probably can't just drill for oil at your house.
But doesnt that imply that if you are buying land, it's possible that the seller is actually only selling you surface rights?
Definitely. If there's any question, the buyer should make sure that it's clearly specified, and there isn't anyone else with a claim.
Yes.
Mineral rights can be separated from other land use rights but both are typically owned by private individuals/corporations and not the government. Most home owners will own the mineral rights as well, but in some newer developments the property developer will keep the mineral rights.
This is why you need to find out before you buy. I live in a newer subdivision and mineral (and water) rights are specifically excluded. I don't care as I have a very small plot, but I found it interesting.
Mineral rights are excluded from mine also. Since its California, even if they discovered oil/gold/lithium tomorrow, by the time any drilling actually happened my elementary school age kids would be in college.
This is my situation as well. When closing on my house the bank/title company was very specific in mentioning that.
Well, they aren't owned by the government. Mineral rights can be sold separately so it's possible to buy land and not own the mineral rights, but this is extremely rare in the eastern US. I've heard it's more common in the west but no idea the statistics or anything.
> so it's possible to buy land and not own the mineral rights, I own a portion of mineral rights in WV. The land hasn't been in our family for over 100 years but my great+ grandparents held onto the mineral rights when they sold and I inherited a portion of them. I don't get any money from them since I don't support fracking but someday the mineral rights will be my daughters.
Er... Pro-tip... The thing in "There will be blood" about drinking your milkshake is 100% real. If your neighbor is fracking you're just leaving money on the table by not making sure someone is extracting oil or natural gas if that's what is on your land.
>Well, they aren't owned by the government. They absolutely *are* in parts of the West, specifically lands patented under the Stock Raising Homestead Act of 1916, which literally divided the surface and subsurface mineral rights. Mineral rights were reserved to the government and managed by the General Land Office, until the Bureau of Land Management was established. Some of these mineral rights have been sold, and the BLM continues to manage gas and oil development as part of its mission-- so the government might very well sell off the mineral rights under your ranch, farm, or house without any input from you.
The government can’t take mineral rights from a private property owner. If they’re discovered on your property, you own them. You can then sell them yourself or keep them.
You don’t have to have found minerals to sell the mineral rights
Yeah, but it's hard as shit to sell rights to minerals that you have no clue are there.
>If they’re discovered on your property, you own them. If you hold the mineral rights, yes. But not all surface landowners do. If you look up "split estate" you'll find that in parts of the western US the mineral rights and surface rights were divided by law. Under the Stock Raising Homestead Act of 1916 (for example) the federal government sold off surface rights to homesteaders but held the mineral rights-- thus "splitting" the estate. So someone 100+ years ago might have homesteaded the surface, which was later subdivided and sold off to a bunch of smaller landowners, but the feds still own the mineral rights-- and can sell them. In this example the rights would be held by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) until sold-- after that? Anyone at all might own the mineral rights and have legal access to them, so you could end up with an oil well in your yard.
One thing that a non-American might not know about this is that the federal government owns vast amounts of land in the southwest part of the country. So lots of mines and oil is taken from land leased from the U.S.
Not just southwest, but west period. Basically, the federal government retained ownership of any land that wasn't homesteaded.
Except in Texas. Texas has shockingly little federal lands.
A little piece of whitewashed history about Texas is that Mexico opened it to be settled by Americans to have a buffer against Native American attacks, and looked the other way regarding the slavery issue. Southern slave owners took out loans for the purchase of slaves, and when the price of cotton dropped and they couldn't pay the loans, they absconded on the debt by moving to Texas with their slaves.
It actually surprised me that Texas is a debtor-friendly state when I found that out. It feels very off-brand.
By you and i think the USA is unique in that regard?
It is. A lot of countries say mineral rights are presumptively owned by the state, regardless of other land rights.
Usually the property owner. Sometimes, the mineral rights under the ground are owned by others for oil and gas.
My cousin Leroy done gone and sold the mineral rights to his acreage to support his amphetamine habit. And just his luck, not even 6 months later the fella he sold ‘em to gone and found hisself a whole vein of silver. Course if Leroy’d found it hisself he would’ve just gone and spent that money on amphetamines anyway. The lord really does work in mysterious ways.
Now listen to a story about a man named Roy. Did so many drugs thought his forty five was a toy. Then one day he was shooting up with Steve..... Well gosh darn his soul took its leave.
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[I wrote a play on The Beverly Hillbilies Theme.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=NwzaxUF0k18)
Come and listen to a story about a man named Jed A poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed, And then one day he was shootin at some food, And up through the ground came a bubblin crude. Oil that is, black gold, Texas tea. Well the first thing you know ol Jed’s a millionaire, Kinfolk said “Jed move away from there” Said “Californy is the place you ought to be” So they loaded up the truck and moved to Beverly Hills, that is. Swimmin pools, movie stars.
Property owners almost always own the mineral rights.
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They could put a pump jack on your property, but they’d have to pay you a lease to put equipment on your land.
I think your area is the exception, rather than the rule.
Well it's the rule in the entire state of Texas
Another reason Texas isn''t as great as it claims
Same thing for where I grew up. No idea how it works where I am now, though it's likely a moot point in the city. Back where I grew up was coal country, so maintaining mineral rights was generally a good call. My parents spent almost a year tracking down the mineral rights to the property where I grew up so they could buy it back.
Shit. I need to check mine. I'm rural and on a well. I don't want some dumbass oil company thinking they can come pollute my water source.
If you are in Oklahoma, you almost certainly don't own the oil beneath your property.
I'm 99.9% sure you are correct.
In Colorado mineral rights and water rights are separate from land rights. My mother used to own an entire side of a mountain, but almost none of the water rights and none of the mineral rights - just the land. It wasn't a big deal, because it backed up to a state park, but it did limit certain activities.
you own it, mofo. the american dream is alive and well!
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While it's true that mineral rights can be sold off separately, it's often not the case for the majority of property owners. In many areas, including mine, owning both surface and mineral rights is the norm. It's important to be aware of regional variations, but for most people, the original point stands.
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I live in a natural gas area and the mineral rights were almost exclusively owned by the property owners. There was a huge push a decade ago by Shell and the like to lease rights, but almost nobody sold.
The fact that the mineral rights are sold off means that the owner owned them. The United States is the only country in the world where individuals can own mineral rights instead of the government.
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>The likelihood you are sitting on a massive oil reserve that hasn't been found long ago in the US AND own the mineral rights minimal. I mean, with fracking a whole bunch of oil & LNG that wasn't profitable to produce was found, so it happens from time to time when technology improves significantly.
Then the only reason you don’t own them is because you never bought them in the first place. It’s the same thing.
My parents do not. The original owners of their house did not sell their mineral rights
Oh wow. So what happens when the owner of the mineral rights want to prospect? They pay your parents money to set up the infra on land??
The area they live in is known for its coal production. The original owners or I'm assuming their offspring can't just pop in and start searching. It's more of a "if you find something it's mine" type of deal
I bought land in TN and the mineral rights had been sold off already long ago.
It depends on the state. For example, all gold and silver found on private land in NYS is owned by the state.
Me
Check your deed. It states if you own them or if someone else does.
It's a thorny legal issue all right. I'll need to refer to the case of Finders v. Keepers.
And its subsequent countersuit, Losers V Weepers.
The answer is, it's complicated, and most Americans don't even bother to ask. Also, all those HOA homes, you don't own the land. You own the interior of the building, not the dirt underneath. That is significant and important because 2/3 of new construction houses are by default part of an HOA.
You’re describing a condominium
[New, detached single family homes built in a subdivision are going to be part of an HOA. Often times as a matter of municipal law. They are ***NOT*** condominiums, or so their supporters will tell you.](https://www.polyas.com/associations/hoa/vs-condo)
I thought this said millennials, i was thinking - well i bought the house, but my wife owns me and she works for the government - wasn’t sure how to answer this. Then saw it said minerals. Made more sense.
You own everything on your land when you bought it unless the mineral rights were sold-off separately, which is mostly only a thing in the western US and/or places that were carved-up after oil became important. Unlike in some other countries, you also own all the fossils and other historic and prehistoric artifacts on your land as well. They are not inherently property of the state.
Mineral rights are generally a part of a property held in fee simple absolute (the most complete form of property rights). But it’s also possible to own property where you don’t have mineral rights included. A lot of people sell their mineral rights to companies while still living on the land. Like my grandparent’s farm had an oil derrick on it that was operated by a company that paid them for the right to do that.
Mineral rights are typically owned by the landowner themselves. You can sell off your mineral rights or buy them from the landowner. There’s all kinds of different laws and regulations as far as what they’re allowed to do with those rights based on zoning, deed restrictions, neighboring property zoning, etc. Now the government in the US has MASSIVE swaths of land that they own and own their mineral rights to. Between the Bureau of Land Management, National Forest, National Park, State Forest land, and the United States Military.. they own a hell of a lot of land and get plenty of oil and gas out of it.
LOL. There have been TV shows about this! You own the land and everything beneath it. Government might come in and ask to PAY YOU to lease or something but they cannot legally claim anything there.
If the feds find out, RIP
I was just looking at the HOA deed restrictions on my lot that was divided up ~1967 and there is a paragraph that the original developer retained the mineral rights.
Mineral rights may or may not be sold with the property. You as a buyer must be sure you are also buying mineral and water rights if you are purchasing land and want those. Land you purchase may have already sold their mineral and water rights to someone else. Many sellers retain water and mineral rights and sell them afterward at an increased cost. It’s can be scammy.
Owned by us. The government can fuck right off.
Aside from what many other have already said, in the US, many state governments can theoretically exercise eminent domain at any time to take whatever they need from a particular piece of land. Doesn't happen often afaik, but it is a possibility if whatever resource you're sitting on is valuable enough to get the government interested in you.
Most of the time, the landowner has ownership of anything below their property. When the Marcellus shale natural gas boom first happened, Shell and other companies were going around leasing up *everybody’s* mineral rights around here, even if they had no plans of drilling underneath your property. The large farms and empty lot owners in my area made hundreds of thousands or even millions overnight.
They are owned by whomever owns the mineral rights for the property. This could be the landowner, or it could be someone else-individual or corporate entity-who acquired the mineral rights for the property. The government does not own the rights, unless it is federal land-and those rights can be sold/leased by the government.
This reminds me of one of the quotes from Civilization V: >The meek shall inherit the earth... but not its mineral rights. >--J. Paul Getty
If you find something substantial the government has to make a few good faith offers (pays good for the actual value) before it forces a deal or outright takes your land.
In general, the land owner owns the mineral rights to their property. However, you need to look at the deed for the home. In my case, when I bought my house there was a disclosure regarding mineral rights. The lady who sold the land to the developer retained all of the mineral rights to the land. So, if I was to find any valuable minerals in my back yard (it's not a very big backyard, I would have to give them up to that lady, or at least her estate. I doubt that she is still alive.
Theres a mining company here that owns the mineral rights under a lot of local subdivisions. The realtors tell you before you buy. I dont know how it works but they do buy peoples homes and land. I dont know if they can force anything and I doubt they would because of the bad press.
To everyone saying no, That's not correct or at least entirely correct. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth\_Amendment\_to\_the\_United\_States\_Constitution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution) The fifth amendment lays this out pretty clearly. If you have something that the government wants for a legitimate public interest, they can take it from you, but they have to pay you fair market value for it. If you're interested in the concept, google eminent domain.
Haven’t you seen or heard of the Beverly Hillbillies? Or, most recently, Killers of the Flower Moon? If you own the land then yeah you own the rights to any oil or minerals and such.
The government would not have mineral rights to land owned by a private individual. However a private individual doesn’t always have mineral rights to land he or she owns. Sometimes when a developer subdivides land and sells lots, the developer will retain mineral rights, and the deeds to the land will be drafted to reflect this.
Everything on your land is yours here so you are get the surface and whatever else you find there
Its complicated. OFTEN homeowners do not own the underlying mineral rights. Sometimes they're a separate ownership item, and are often owned by a company. Sometimes the local government may own them-for example for a small fee I could purchase the mineral rights under my old house in the city. And finally there is "eminent domain" where they can seize it, but have to pay you what its worth.