A mineral rights lease is an agreement that allows mining companies to get to work and determine if the soil contains the right minerals and in sufficient quantities. To lease mineral rights, companies pay the owner to reserve ownership for a certain period of time. If the company finds the minerals it is looking for, it can continue to mine, but if it does not find the minerals before the lease expires, the rights to the property revert to the owner. If you`re in the energy business, you`ll need to work with a law firm that knows how to represent you on issues involving surface rights versus mineral rights in West Virginia. Contact the law firm of Hendrickson & Long, a WV-based law firm dedicated to protecting the rights of companies operating in the energy sector in WV, Kentucky (KY) and Pennsylvania (PA): 304-346-5500. In the Buffalo Mining case, WV`s Supreme Court of Appeal created a test for properly treating surface rights versus mineral rights. In this case, Buffalo Mining owned an underground coal mine. Attempts were made to create a surface power line that would ventilate an underground coal mine. However, the owner of the surface hindered the construction of the power line. In deciding whether Buffalo Mining, as the owner of the mining rights, had the right to build a power line on the property, the court established a double test: Mining rights in West Virginia are complicated because they can be divided among multiple owners or within a family, each earning royalties and paying taxes on their rights. Many of those who do not pay these taxes end up losing property to the government, even if they did not know they were obliged to pay taxes. With this right, you can use the land at will, and even dig to a certain depth to install a septic tank. With your surface rights, you can lease or sell the surface rights alone, but nothing about drilling and developing the oil and gas resources underneath.
If you know the legal status, your surface rights may be sufficient. After concluding that the owners` properties were all subject to mining concessions that allowed for reasonable use of the surface to develop the underlying minerals, the tribunal recognized that none of the owners` surface properties had actually been used for access to the minerals: “Five of the six drill holes in question would have been located within a radius of 0.42 to 1 mile from the Landowners. As a result, the Court turned to the “standard for balancing the rights of surface owners and mineral owners with respect to implied uses of surface property,” as in Buffalo Mining Co. v. Martin, 165 W. Va. 10, 267 p.E.2d 721 (1980), where the Court held that “for an implied easement claim for surface rights related to mining activities to be successful, it must be shown not only that the right is reasonably necessary for the extraction of the ore, but also that it can be exercised without significant burden on the surface owner.” Although many people know their local landowners or know who is responsible for accessing the site, this property is not fully defined for all families. In many families, there are discussions about who owns mineral rights or surface rights. You can use the local government website to find general information in the national and regional archives. Below is a breakdown of the general steps to follow when searching for mineral rights documents on the site. Although the MLP granted Antero and Hall Drilling`s request for summary judgment, it “rejected the application of harassment law principles and instead ruled on the applications for summary judgments based on Antero`s contractual and property rights.” In particular, the MLP order states: “Since the court renders summary judgment based on Antero`s contractual and proprietary rights, it does not address issues to which the common law principles of private harassment would apply.
The court therefore fails to reach a conclusion as to whether Antero`s actions would otherwise meet the legal definition of harassment. In doing so, MLP relied on the fact that the landowners owned only the area of their respective parcels, since the minerals had been separated in the early 1900s and the last mining deed for each property had given Antero “lease rights to develop the oil and gas underlying the land that is the subject of [the landowners`] complaint. These development rights have been retained by oil and gas mineral owners in deeds of compensation separating surface properties from mineral properties. Accordingly, MLP concluded that the deeds of compensation constituted an easement and that the activities of Antero and Hall Drilling did not exceed the scope of the easement. Usually, insurance companies or lawyers conduct such research.