Head-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
“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
Question: 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
It ‘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
The 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.
Continue Reading The Reservation Was Not in the Deed