Who Really Owns Your Land? Decoding Mineral Rights and Property Deeds
Download MP3Episode Show Notes: Understanding Mineral Rights and Property Deeds
- What are mineral rights and how they relate to real estate property deeds
- Explanation that some properties include mineral rights while others have them split off and owned separately
- Owning a home doesn’t always mean owning the rights to minerals, oil, or gas beneath the surface
- Mineral rights can be sold separately and previous owners may have granted others access to extract resources from your property
- The importance of running a title search to determine ownership and rights related to a property
- Different types of title searches explained:
- Current Owner Search: The most common, fastest, and cheapest, showing ownership records from the current owner forward
- Why a current owner search may miss mineral rights if those rights were sold or split off earlier
- The need for a Chain of Title Search to trace ownership history, often going back 50-60 years, to identify if mineral rights were separated before the current deed
- How mineral rights can transfer between companies but remain separate from surface land ownership
- Other examples of split property rights including:
- Timber rights (rights to harvest trees/lumber)
- Water rights (riparian rights for surface or underground water extraction)
- Explanation that property deeds record specific rights transferred and do not always reflect the full "bundle" of property rights if some were separated previously
- Importance of choosing the correct type of title search to fully understand what rights come with the property
- Introduction of modern property rights such as air rights, including examples like cell towers with easements on your land
- How new types of split-off rights (like air rights) affect property ownership and usage today
