Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by P.G. on August 16, 2008 at 15:49

What difference would it make! If you owned them, a landman will come calling sooner or later if he wanted to lease your minerals. Let him ferret it out for you!

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Pat on August 17, 2008 at 7:30

The difference is simple. If I don't own them then I don't have to spend hours every day trying to learn more about the process and attend meetings with neighborhood groups etc. If I don't own them then I can get on with my life and not worry about it instead of waiting on some landman to call me.

So, looks like maybe $200 is what it should cost roughly?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jim on August 17, 2008 at 11:23

Mr. McConnell
I have spent considerable time in the courthouse and on Sonris trying to determine whether or not I have mineral rights on my property. It appears to be somewhat complicated for a novice, but it has been interesting to say the least. I have owned property for 31 years in the Sligo field that has been in production for 60 years. The property I own has been in various "units" (HOSS and CV) as per the Conservation office. Hosston units were 40 acres and CV unit was 640. Wells were drilled in the HOSS formation, although not in my HOSS unit in the 640 acre section. Wells have been drilled and producing in the 640 CV unit, but that was following the 10 year period. From my research thus far, at no time was a well drilled/produced in my unit during a 10+ year continuous span. I said all that to ask, if there has been no production in the unit my property is in during a 10 year period, does the mineral rights revert to me? From all that info, I understand why it costs more than $200 for a mineral search. Thanks.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jim on August 17, 2008 at 16:48

Land description I am searching is:
SW1/4 NW1/4 Sec 15 T17N R12W Bossier Parish. Thanks, Jim

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jim on August 18, 2008 at 1:49

Mr McConnell: I entered the incorrect description in a previous post. I have read too many land descriptions - The correct one is:
NW1/4 of NW1/4 Sec 15 T17N R12W, Bossier Parish.
Lots of stuff to browse through, but I like a challenge.
Thanks,
jim

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by reg on August 17, 2008 at 12:08

I agree with Jim-- this is not a $200 title search. This is a much more extensive search of the records.

Jim, don't you think this has to be done in person at the courthouse. I don't think the computer records go back far enough.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jim on August 17, 2008 at 16:51

Reg, I have spent lots of time in person at the courthouse as well searches on the computer. I actually enjoy the work - I retired about 3 year ago. It's lots of fun to learn some of the history of where you live.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Two Dogs, Pirate on August 17, 2008 at 12:09

Mr. McConnell, the $200 may have come from me but I said that as a base where everything would fall into place with no complications or mineral related things to get in the way and with a last name like Zypher not Smith or Johnson. I have at times ran title patent to present in less than an hour but that is rare and it was in a non-production area.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Two Dogs, Pirate on August 16, 2008 at 15:51

Depends on the mineral rights, you need a run from a solid deed from 1921 or before. Tax sales during the depression sent some mineral interests to the state. It may be a cost of very little, $200 or more to a large number depending on the property.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Caroline B on August 16, 2008 at 16:38

I have a friend who does this (title work) for a large law firm every day and has done it for over 20 years. She is paid hourly and I imagine it depends on how complicated it gets. It can get very complicated, from what I understand, but I don't know an hourly rate.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Dion Warr, CPL on August 18, 2008 at 2:40

Pat:

You got some good insights on this discussion already, but let me add my two cents:

As fast and furious as title is being 'run' in a lot of areas in HS country, what Jim has said outlines the procedures presently being used with the lease brokers and abstractors.

What are the title folks doing up there? Well, they could be doing "tax roll title", particularly in areas that have not seen production in a long time. Folks go to the assessor's office to find out who owns what in the area. The 'leasehounds' call these people for interest in leasing, and ask them a few basic questions, like "how long have you owned the property, is this family property that you (or your family) have owned for a long time, have you ever been leased before", etc. That filters out a lot of mineral title possibilities, in that if your owner has owned property for more than ten years in a non-productive area and has not leased in over ten years, or it has been quite a while longer, the chances are good that this person owns their minerals, and their tract is "open".

This is NOT the way to run mineral title. It's more like a way to "guestimate" mineral title. And in areas in and around old productive fields, it can be a recipe for disaster, since mineral servitudes created just before production occurred within an area could have been maintained for decades (if not generations) by production and/or good-faith operations in and around the area.

Generally, good LA landmen (or, landmen with the time to do so) will run a mineral history prior to starting title in a prospect area. This involves, you guessed it, Office of Conservation searches of well files and/or SONRIS. This is done to find out who drilled what, where, and when, as well as whether the wells were productive, if not actively being worked, and when the wells were plugged and abandoned. This information can then be compared against the courthouse title to "weed out" deeds with mineral reservation, old leases, mineral deeds and royalty deeds, etc. that have either have created mineral servitudes that have been extinguished due to ten years of non-use, or contracts which have expired of their own terms. Sometimes, this information is used to determine 'how far back' to run title for leasing purposes (e.g., if exploration and/or production in an area began in the 1960s, the abstractors can reasonably assume that a safe starting point to run title could be from the 1950s).

This is not without its problems, in that assumptions are made here, too, that the land has been properly severed from the sovereign (by patent from the state or federal government, or by an accepted submission of land grant obtained by parties who had received such a grant from Spain or France prior to the Louisiana Purchase). This is crucial, in that while you may obtain title to property simply by long-standing occupation of privately owned land (through a process known as liberative title), such does not hold true for lands which have never been severed by the sovereign (e.g., you can be a squatter on state or federal land for generations, it is still the property of the state or federal government). The other "red letter dates" are, as reported here, 1921 and 1934. If private property was seized and adjudicated to the State of Louisiana for non-payment of taxes was not redeemed by the debtor or on debtor's behalf after 1921, the minerals are owned by the state. If a tract of land was patented or sold to a private owner by the State of Louisiana after 1921, or by the Unted States after 1934 in which the government owned mineral rights, those mineral rights were reserved in perpetuity by the State or Federal government. You can use those dates and get much closer to 100% certainty as to your mineral ownership, but there are still a couple of outliers that could cause problems.

I can go into those later, per your request.

• ▶ Reply