Buying Texas Land/No Mineral Rights

[MDemel]

You ever worked that University Land all around Big Lake? Got their own "cops" in jeeps. $3,000 for getting off the pad or lease road and a whole book of other rules

Yessir I do believe so, there's been a couple leases I didn't even want to drive out on. I've even heard of landowners set out in ghillie suits with radar guns trying to catch folks.

[Aggiehunter08]

Yes. Never sell mineral rights.

LOL. I'm in the business and usually have some for sale. You don't want to sell them on good horizontal acreage (Wolfcamp, Bonespring, Niobrara, Codell, etc.)

[Ouch]

Just here for the comments!

Crippler and Grayson have made valuable input!

[Longue Carabine]

Hmm so what happens if the surface rights owner gets a conservation easement? What then?

[riverbowman]

I can only comment based on my experience. My friend is an oil/gas attorney and in our situation he told me three things:

- If they want to drill, they're gonna drill, and pretty much wherever they want to.
- Start out nicely with the "land man". He/She can be your best advocate.
- They are definitely supposed to TRY and be cooperative with the land owner. They decide what the definition of "trying" is and how hard they are willing to try.

Our experience was great. Our place is absolutely beautiful, heavily wooded with tons of topography. The land man contacted me and said they were going to do some exploration. They were needing to get a BIG machine to different points all over our property. All of which required knocking trees down to get it there.

I asked him if I could draw their routes on an aerial photo so that I could at least get some nice trails out of the deal. He gladly let me do that and I ran those suckers all over the place to get from point A to point B. No straight lines. We ended up with about a mile and a half of 10 ft wide trails I never would have cleared and they paid us $5,000 to do it.

They decided not to drill, but the land man told me if they did he would make sure they worked with me on where they put the roads, and where they put the well(s) to the greatest extent he could control that.

Other people have had horrible experiences. We were lucky.

[quarterback]

I can only comment based on my experience. My friend is an oil/gas attorney and in our situation he told me three things:

- If they want to drill, they're gonna drill, and pretty much wherever they want to.
- Start out nicely with the "land man". He/She can be your best advocate.
- They are definitely supposed to TRY and be cooperative with the land owner. They decide what the definition of "trying" is and how hard they are willing to try.

Our experience was great. Our place is absolutely beautiful, heavily wooded with tons of topography. The land man contacted me and said they were going to do some exploration. They were needing to get a BIG machine to different points all over our property. All of which required knocking trees down to get it there.

I asked him if I could draw their routes on an aerial photo so that I could at least get some nice trails out of the deal. He gladly let me do that and I ran those suckers all over the place to get from point A to point B. No straight lines. We ended up with about a mile and a half of 10 ft wide trails I never would have cleared and they paid us $5,000 to do it.

They decided not to drill, but the land man told me if they did he would make sure they worked with me on where they put the roads, and where they put the well(s) to the greatest extent he could control that.

Other people have had horrible experiences. We were lucky.

Too bad you couldn't have negotiated with them to give you a copy of the seismic data for your records. Assuming they shot seismic on your land.

[riverbowman]

Too bad you couldn't have negotiated with them to give you a copy of the seismic data for your records. Assuming they shot seismic on your land.

I probably could have had I know better.

[aggieman08]

Not to my knowledge.

The county absolutely can tax you if you own minerals, especially in a prolific area. Think of it as inventory, although it is not being sold it is still valuable and taxable.

[oktx]

The county absolutely can tax you if you own minerals, especially in a prolific area. Think of it as inventory, although it is not being sold it is still valuable and taxable.

Even before it’s pulled from the ground?

[quarterback]

The county absolutely can tax you if you own minerals, especially in a prolific area. Think of it as inventory, although it is not being sold it is still valuable and taxable.

Not sure about this. At least in Texas.

[aggieman08]

Even before it’s pulled from the ground?

Yes.

[oktx]

Yes.

Well, I said my knowledge was limited.

[aggieman08]

Not sure about this. At least in Texas.

Let me clairify, if it is a producing unit property taxes will be imposed on the minerals. If you received payments, you will have to pay income taxes.

[Kbar]

Young lady, life is too short. Buy your land without the minerals and don’t sweat the small stuff. There may be some people still selling minerals with land but I see it as a dying option.

[Ouch]

Yes.

Where? I'm not aware of any counties that tax non-produced minerals.