Re: [Homesteadingfamily] Just wanted to introduce myself :)

On Mon, 1 Nov 2010 20:52:30 -0400
"Teresa Ward" <jrward3@citynet.net> wrote:

> So, when you find land you like, make sure you buy the
> mineral rights too.

That is frequently pretty much impossible. In many cases, the
seller doesn't have them.

Just try to buy land in Hawaii with the mineral rights. You
can't get them.

> Find out about rights-of-way that may apply to your property
> before you buy it. And, don't assume that just because the
> gas company is USING it that they actually have a legal
> right-of-way. Learn to search these things out at the county
> courthouse. The gas company uses a road across my land, but
> they don't have a legal right of way. They use it only by
> our good graces ... as they found out when they tried to
> bully us once. <G>

I think that in some cases, if they've been using the roadway
long enough, they will have created a legal right of way by
their continued, unobstructed use whether or not they ever
signed anything.

> Find out what the surface ownership rights actually are. We
> receive gas royalties from a methane well that has fingers
> under our property. They wanted to actually drill on us, we
> refused. They drilled on the neighboring coal mine
> property. Not us. They cannot necessarily disturb your
> surface just because they own mineral rights.

I don't know about West Virginia, but here in Texas, you can't
stop them from drilling unless you own 100% of the mineral
rights and there are no mineral leases.

Another thing that is becoming more and more important in some
parts of the country is wind rights. You could buy a piece of
property not realizing that the wind rights have been sold and
five years later someone might come in and put up a windmill
farm on your property and you can't do a thing about it.

Keep in mind that mineral rights and leases are not the same
thing. You could own 100% of the mineral rights but if the
previous owner leased the minerals to someone else, they can
still come in and drill. In this case, you would get the
royalties. The same goes for wind rights and wind leases as
well.

Eric