I guess I knew this or had heard of it before, but never really thought much about it, it appears that a mineral owner can condemn a surface owner and take the property, of course for value.
Gets into some very interesting legal questions.
I'm in the southeast and have never really dealt with mineral rights. However, I have a conceptual understanding (largely surrounding sales of a fee owner's subsurface mining/ exploration rights- an underground easement to the benefit of another).
My question on potential condemnation and "fair market value":
If an entity has decided that removal of the 'surface owner' (condemnation) is warranted with regards to mineral rights, then I assert that entity has confirmed presence of a value within the "non-surface" that is great enough to implore the taking of the entire parcel.
For that reason, FMV should rest with the value of access to the value in the mineral.
In other words, let that entity pay me the value of my home/ 'land' plus a reasonable margin for access to the value they are after.
I could probably settle before condemnation actually happened.
On the other hand, I'm typing this and starting to say, "I'll be *%(@&ed if you're taking my land!"
The process it to value the fee surface right and then the surface owner is compensated for it based on an appraisal. The mineral ownership rights supersedes the surface ownership rights. Much of the lands in the west are split estate, so these conflicts are on going.
Gives a whole new twist to 'buyer beware' for me; the land runs 2nd to the mineral rights.
Does that imply, in historical terms, that when the land was laid out and offered for initial sale, deeper-pocketed mineral prospectors made the first purchases, encumbering the mineral rights and selling the surface use to recoup a part (or, perhaps, all) of their initial investment?
no at first the land and minerals were patented together, then the gov started holding back first coal then all minerals, Teddy Roosevelt began it.
When land was resold after the patent it often was only the surface that would be sold, the owner of the private minerals might retain all or some, now there are lands with split estate, minerals owned by sometimes one person, or hundreds of people or maybe the state or feds. It's a big mess really. But the stronger right is the minerals.
Yes, the stronger right is always with the public. Private owners hold title subject to rights of the public (eminent domain theory). And it has been held that mineral extraction is necessary to the public. Hence, even if a private interest it trumps other private interests.
The law evolves though, and I wonder if this will be modified due to global climate change issues, population growth, etc.. One could argue it is no longer in the public interest to extract certain minerals. Could it be that the public interest is better served by a farm that produces food for a growing population than extraction of the minerals beneath it?
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> The law evolves though, and I wonder if this will be modified due to global climate change issues, population growth, etc.. One could argue it is no longer in the public interest to extract certain minerals. Could it be that the public interest is better served by a farm that produces food for a growing population than extraction of the minerals beneath it?
Well- if you ever want to come out to Mighty's AO and argue that point, let me know- I'd like to watch....
He may be correct, there have been some movement towards giving surface owners more say, some laws were passed statewide recently to address some issues.
Thanks for sharing, all. Again, lots to learn from this ole chalkboard.
Will be interesting to watch those points of conflicting public interest develop over the coming years.
