Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Angie on November 4, 2009 at 13:56

Yes after the 1921 amendment to the State's Constitution the State of Louisiana cannot divest themselves of minerals. So they are the State of Louisiana's forever.

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Permalink Reply by skipcrawford on November 4, 2009 at 17:34

That's what we heard. It also is the pits. It's only 20 acres but every acre counts.

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Permalink Reply by Mac Davis on November 6, 2009 at 10:21

IANAL

I suspect you're out of luck.

However, sales for back taxes are sometimes different from other types of sales. This varies from state to state. For instance, if there's a sale for back taxes, you may still owe the mortgage, there may be other claims, etc.

Did the state legally own the minerals at the time they sold the property for back taxes? Since there's no tax on the minerals, can the state claim them as part of a sheriff sale? What if the mineral rights were owned by someone other than the surface property owner at the time of the sale. Did the Louisiana law specifically give the state ownership of the mineral rights due to back taxes, etc.? For that matter, did the state own the property at all, or did the state simply forcibly transfer ownership of the property from the previous owner to you?

One would think the state wrote the laws to give the state the most benefit and the buyer the least benefit, but sometimes they are inefficient and miss an opportunity to shaft the citizen.

Once again, I suspect you're out of luck, but there might be some sort of loophole or room to argue. It would probably cost you money and effort to find out. It might be worth checking with a good O&G attorney.

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Permalink Reply by Bobi Carr ("parker") on November 6, 2009 at 20:07

skipcrawford,

I AM NOT A LAWYER (EITHER)

But with my limited knowledge of the law, I would think that there MAY be something that you could do about it.

If you purchased Tax Sale property (as opposed to purchasing Adjudicated property), I can't conceive of how the State is claiming ownership.

In a Tax Sale situation their role is similar to that of a Trustee.

With a tax sale though, you may not have clear title anyway (depending on whether the previous owner received proper notice).

It would be interesting to hear the particulars of your purchase, if you would like to share them.

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Permalink Reply by The_Baron on November 6, 2009 at 10:41

Prescription does not run against the soveriegn.

LA owns the minerals.

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Permalink Reply by Dion Warr, CPL on November 9, 2009 at 8:17

Skip C:

If you (or your ancestors) purchased the property from the State (not the tax debtor), you are more than likely out of luck. But the facts and a good legal opinion (don't look at mean, IANAL, either) are going to be paramount in a determination of ownership.

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Permalink Reply by The_Baron on November 10, 2009 at 5:53

Dion, going just from the opening statement, I am assuming that the deed had a mineral reservation in favor tof the state. I wouldn't mind seeing a copy of the deed though..

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Permalink Reply by Mac Davis on November 10, 2009 at 7:58

I think the crux of the matter is "did the government dot all the I's and cross the T's to take ownership of the minerals at the time of the sale?" Especially since the minerals may not have been worth much in 1952.

Don't assume they did everything right. There's SOME chance that a good lawyer will find out that the state never got "ownership" of the minerals.

You're probably out of luck, but there may be some chance.

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Permalink Reply by The_Baron on November 10, 2009 at 10:36

Generally speaking, land aquired by the state as result of a tax sale would also aquire the minerals, if the minerals were still with the surface. Tax sales worked much diffrently back then.

Whether the deed from the state to the vendee had a reservation is not as important, since the state cannot sell minerals (except in a few isolated instances, but that is not important here). But the fact that Mr. Crawford stated that there was a reservation by the state sets off a red flag to me.

Also, the fact that this land is already under state lease tells me that some landman has already run title, and since state leases are bought with no warranty whatsoever, the lessor would have probally done thier homework.

Yes, there could be a chance, probally not though, I wouldn't spend too much time or money in this.

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Permalink Reply by Dion Warr, CPL on November 10, 2009 at 13:21

Mac (and Baron):

The stated purpose of the tax sale (in essence, to repossess the property due to the delinquency of property taxes) generally was not looked upon as a "taking" in the sense of the word that it would generally be subject to limitations that would be statutory or constitutional for a "taking" (e.g., expropriations, in which the vested interest of the state for taking the property for a public purpose, like a reservoir or a highway, for instance, did not require the taking of mineral rights, ergo, the state has no mineral rights under same) that would normally preclude the state from obtaining minerals. This is the reason while title attorneys (and the abstractors who work on their behalf) have to pay attention in examining the tax deeds and sheriff's sales from the 1920s forward to about the mid-50s (maybe as late as the the early to mid-60s; I'll need to check) because at some point during that time the procedure changed. As Baron so noted: tax sales worked much differently back then.

Being that the controlling principle post-1921 was the constitutional public policy of minerals owned or obtained by the state to be held by the state in perpetuity, the need for a reservation of minerals was not a requirement for the state to retain minerals in deeds or sales after this date. Tax redemptions would be different, however, in that the redeemer would have the right to reclaim their property in total (minerals included) once their delinquent taxes were paid. It was only after several years had transpired from the enactment of the 1921 Constitution that the reference to the mineral reservations in favor of the State began to appear as commonplace. With or without the reservation language, the stated public policy post-1921 (per 1921 Constitution) ensured that the State could not divest itself of mineral rights after that time.

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Permalink Reply by skipcrawford on November 15, 2009 at 8:55

We are going to the court house to get a copy of the deed. We were told by family the state retained the mineral rights but we actually don't really know. All the family that was involved are now deceased. Thanks for all the information.

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Permalink Reply by olddog573 on August 11, 2010 at 12:34

what was the out come of this?

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