With all the new issues coming up regarding energy mineral rights is becoming a major and new issue for some farmers depending on where they're located.
Despite the monetary gain a farmer could make there are environmental issues at stake. Particularly oil/gas drilling. And even more so with hydraulic fracturing (fracking) method of extracting natural gas.
In an interview by Delta Farm Press, James Isonhood, Mississippi assistant attorney general said, "There is a lot of misinformation about this."
Making a mineral rights deal is a very serious business he said.
"If someone knocks on your door offering to buy mineral rights, the first thing you need to do is find a lawyer who is knowledgeable about oil and gas mineral rights. Don't use just any lawyer - be sure it's one who has knowledge of and is experience in dealing with the complicated issues in mineral rights."
Just because you own the land doesn't mean you own the mineral rights. The mineral rights may have been sold separately many years ago.
"If someone owns the mineral rights for your property - dominate estate - they have an absolute right to recover those minerals," Isonhood says. "If you own the mineral rights and sell or lease them to a gas company, that gives them dominate estate."
Determining who owns the mineral rights can be difficult. "You may have to go all the way back to the original patent in the 1800's," He says. If the property is inherited then the land would go to the heirs. If not, then it would go to who ever it was sold to.
If their are several heirs to the property then things can get really complicated. Have you ever had to get numerous people to make a decision? It's like herding cats sometimes.
Stanley D. Ingram, an attorney in Jackson, Miss said there is no such thing as a "standard" oil and gas lease form. "If there is one thing certain about today's oil and gas lease, it is that it's uncertain. Every oil and gas lease is unique, requiring the utmost of the lawyer's review and interpretation."
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