If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Or, as said by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, “A rule of property long acquiesced in should not be overthrown except for compelling reasons of public policy or the imperative demands of justice.” There were no such imperatives in Butler vs. Charles Powers Estate, in which the Court upheld the ”Dunham Rule” in Pennsylvania oil… Continue Reading
Category Archives: Land Titles
Subscribe to Land Titles RSS FeedWhat is an Enforceable Property Description?
Posted in Land Titles, Title IssuesCo-author: Travis Booher Valid Description? We don’t need no valid stinking description! Actually, in May v. Buck, a Texas Court of Appeals says you do. The need for a sufficient property description in a oil and gas transaction seems like an easy-enough and fundamental concept to grasp, but its application has escaped many a contracting… Continue Reading
Deed Restrictions – Good for Barking Dogs, Not Good for Mineral Reservations
Posted in Land Titles, Title IssuesBy Travis Booher In Texas title law, “it is well settled that a purchaser is bound by every recital, reference and reservation contained in or fairly disclosed by any instrument which forms an essential link in the chain of title under which he claims.” But does this rule apply to mineral reservations in deed restrictions?… Continue Reading
When an Easement Isn’t What it Appears To Be
Posted in Land TitlesHere is Something We Know A Texas mineral estate owner has an implied easement for reasonable use of the surface estate in developing and extracting the minerals below. And a Question Can the mineral estate owner and his lessee use the easement to produce from a mineral estate that is pooled with the surface estate?… Continue Reading
A Texas Mineral Reservation was a Fractional Royalty
Posted in Land TitlesHead-scratchers: (1) Is a mineral reservation a fraction of royalty, or a fractional royalty? (2) Is there a difference? (3) Does it matter? Answers: (1) It depends on how you phrase it. (2) Yes. (3) Yes, if you care about being paid on production, or you are the scrivener of deeds and assignments and want to… Continue Reading
Executive Right Owner Could Be Liable for Failing to Forward Royalty Payments
Posted in Land Titles, Lease Disputes, LitigationThe ghosts of Clinton Manges and people like him continue to haunt executive right owners in Texas. In the 1980’s, Mr. Manges’ abuse of his non-participating royalty owner inspired the Texas Supreme Court to re-affirm the obligations of an executive right owner to the NPRI owner: “utmost fair dealing” and a fiduciary duty. In Friddle v. Fisher an appellate court… Continue Reading
Mistaken Reference in a Deed to a Mineral Reservation Does Not Reserve the Minerals
Posted in Land Titles“If you want a successful gathering of long-lost kinfolks, just manage to find oil on the old homestead. They will come out from under logs, down trees, from out of the blue and down every road and byway, but they’ll get there — even some nobody ever suspected were kinfolks.” Judge R. T.Brown, who presided… Continue Reading
Ohio Surface Rights Do Not Allow Total Destruction of the Land
Posted in Land TitlesOccasionally, we venture beyond the comfortable red-state confines of Texas to visit swing states and discuss mineral activity other than oil and gas drilling; and we go back in time. This is one of those journeys, as we go to Ohio, where the court relied on a decision from the time when Chester A. Arthur was president. In Snyder… Continue Reading
Five Ways to Help Your Title Examiner – Second Half
Posted in Land TitlesBy Travis Booher – Aggie For the sake of the game plan, let’s run with Charlie’s lame football analogies, and look at a few more objectives to keep in mind when preparing a runsheet. This time, attention will be on the good guys (the boys in maroon), rather than the gang in purple and gold…. Continue Reading
Five Ways You Can HelpYour Title Examiner Reach the Goal Line
Posted in Land TitlesWritten by Travis Booher Disclaimer: Travis should not be blamed for the lame football analogies in this post. All too often landmen see the same old comments and the same old requirements in title opinions. I was recently asked for ways to decrease the number of comments and requirements and hence, the amount of curative work (and costs) relating to title opinions. Here… Continue Reading
Reformation For Mutual Mistake Is Not Available to a Negligent Party
Posted in Land Titles, LitigationMy, how times change! In a suit that brings the chaos, frenzy, and all-embracing madness of 2008 Haynesville leasing activity into focus, Hall Ponderosa LLC vs. Petrohawk Properties L.P. held that reformation of an oil and gas lease because of mutual error was not available to a lessor who was negligent in executing the agreement. In… Continue Reading
An Operating Agreement Can Be a Covenant Running With the Land
Posted in Land Titles, Operating AgreementsI promise this will be the last post in a while on covenants running with the land. I think we all get it by now (This topic was discussed in my August 1 post). The Result A Joint Operating Agreement referenced in documents that is in a party’s chain of title and is, by its terms, binding on… Continue Reading
Right of First Refusal Was a Covenant Running With the Land
Posted in Land TitlesQuestion: Can a landowner enforce a right of first refusal bargained for by his predecessor? Answer: It depends. (Note to self: Why do you always say that in your posts? Because, as Texas Rangers’ manager Ron Washington might say, “That’s the way the law go”.) The answer in MPH Production Co. v. Smith et al, was yes,… Continue Reading
Reserving a Mineral Interest Without Saying So
Posted in Land TitlesIt ‘s tough to find an interesting picture of a title dispute, so here’s a musical interlude. You never can tell how the court will construe a complicated property deed. Can the seller of land retain half of the minerals he owns in the property if he doesn’t actually reserve anything? Yes, he can, says Hunsaker v. Brown Distributing, Ltd….. Continue Reading
What is the NPRI Owner’s Share of Production?
Posted in Land TitlesWith apologies to Click and Clack, from time to time I will post ”puzzlers”, questions about title and similar issues that have no apparent answer. Here is the first one: Joe Bob Joiner owns a non-participating royalty interest under a tract. The amount of interest he owns is tied to the amount of royalty stated in any lease affecting… Continue Reading
Beware of Strips and Gores
Posted in Land TitlesA “strip” is just what it sounds like: A narrow parcel of land. A”gore” is a strip in another form, such as a triangle or other odd-shaped parcel. When a grantor conveys land he owns adjacent to a narrow strip that thereby ceases to be of benefit or importance to him, he also conveys the narrow… Continue Reading
The Reservation Was Not in the Deed
Posted in Land TitlesThe contract of sale for the property mentions that you, the seller, intend to reserve the hard minerals, but not the oil and gas beneath the property. The deed to close the transaction contains no reservation of anything.