Mineral Rights Question?

Thats the short version. I wouldn't let the property go becuase of mineral rights they probably don't own.

Water rights are a pain in the ass in co

Going in from the side is no issue, and actually preferred. You could probably get something for an easement if they need access to your plot, but it is a drop in the bucket compared to any royalties from the actual oil. I've seen $1,000 an acre with an additional $5,000 for road building, maintenance, and clean up after. That was for a 3 year lease with option to extend two more years. None of that includes any of the royalty percentage per barrel, which I can't remember at the moment.

What Wolfe said. If there was an issue with water rights, you'd consider walking, but not mineral rights.

All that's been said about access is true, as far as I know. But considering it's 10 acres, I'd say there's not much chance of this ever happening. If something were discovered under the property, most likely a larger tract near by would be aquired in order to access whatever it is.

I had the same reservations years ago when the wife and I left CO for the NM frontier. We had the same issue with our property. Mineral rights are owned by a company back east. We did have an existing (grandfathered) hand dug well with water at 20 feet. We are a part of the local irrigation district and have shares and are meter owner with the local domestic water district. So we did pretty well as far as H20 is concerned. It bugged me not owned the mineral rights, but once I learned practically everyone else in the county was in the same boat, I figured "what the hell".

I wouldn't bat an eye over mineral rights for only 10 acres. If there were oil or natural gas, chances are whatever pocket they were after would be larger than the surface land anyway.

As always, thanks for all the great advice.

I hope I didn't just open a can of worms (like the constant ATF letters). I called assessor and was referred a couple of times and now the Colorado department of water resources is trying to figure out exactly what that pond is. This could get interesting.

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Originally Posted by james_bond_007

Correct me if I am wrong, but even if you don't own the mineral rights, you would still own the property.

Thus a 3rd party owning the mineral rights would have to lease/buy permission from you (the property owner) for egress/ingress, equipment storage (oil derrick, etc. ) , and anything else they needed that required access to your property so they could extract their minerals located under your property.

So if oil was found on your property, you could likely work out a deal for you to lease them access to your property, let them deal with extracting the oil, and perhaps require a royalty per barrel.
In a way, they do all the work, and you collect a check.

However, if they had access to the bordering property, I think they could drill from there, at an angle, and extract oil from under your property.

(I ask that someone with more first hand experience please comment on this...I don't want to mislead the OP.)

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I'm not sure that's correct. If someone else owns mineral rights to your property you may not be allowed by law to block their access to those minerals (much like if someone owns a piece of property that is surrounded by other people's property, you have to allow them to access their property even if that means crossing your property to get there ... I believe it's called "Easement" or "Right of way" or something like that) I don't know if this counts for mineral rights.

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Originally Posted by th3w01f

As always, thanks for all the great advice.

I hope I didn't just open a can of worms (like the constant ATF letters). I called assessor and was referred a couple of times and now the Colorado department of water resources is trying to figure out exactly what that pond is. This could get interesting.

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Better to get that sorted out now at least. Water issues suck in this part of the world. Been fighting wars over it for a long time.

A friend of mine just sold his place in Weld county and retained the mineral rights. If the oil company ever does come in to that property, the new owner will receive a check ONLY for any access from the surface, while my friend will get royalties for any mineral that come from under ground. Like stated before, I wouldn't bat an eye over mineral rights these days. Make sure the water situation is covered above all else. Good luck with the purchase.

This is what I was going to comment on. I was looking to buy 40acres out east . It came with both water and mineral so I had many of the same questions. I would not buy any land that did not come with them explicitly once I found out what it really meant. Not a lawyer so all comments should be taken as such. If you don't own mineral rights they can park a well 50yds off your back door and you can't do squat about it. Complete with a fire tube if required. I had nightmares about hearing the 'squeak' .... 'Squeak' every night as some jerk drives on my property at 2AM to check the damn thing. As for water, if you have well water, my understanding is, you have to have the water rights or you will be paying whom ever does. Even if you don't have them, if you want a well in the future... It also makes sense just from a "you own you home" standpoint.

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Originally Posted by Zundfolge

I'm not sure that's correct. If someone else owns mineral rights to your property you may not be allowed by law to block their access to those minerals (much like if someone owns a piece of property that is surrounded by other people's property, you have to allow them to access their property even if that means crossing your property to get there ... I believe it's called "Easement" or "Right of way" or something like that) I don't know if this counts for mineral rights.

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