We are potentially closing on a purchase of land, where the Seller has agreed to convey only the surface and executive rights.
The wording that we have received is the Deed reads "Grantor reserves all bonuses, delay rentals, and royalty, and conveys all executive and surface rights now owned by Grantor to Grantee."
This wording seems a little loose is there better/tighter wording that will protect both parties from misinterpretation in the future?
Here is the previous deed wording,
"Save and Except, there is hereby reserved unto Grantor heirs and assigns, an undivided one-half of the oil, gas and related gaseous or liquefiable hydrocarbons, in, on, under and that may be produced from the above described property, together with the right of ingress and egress at all times for the purpose of mining, drilling, exploring, operating and developing said lands for oil, gas and other minerals and removing the same there from. Executive rights as the interest reserved in the paragraph are also reserved."
The previous deed does not spell out all of the parts of surface ownership the seller has. It might be helpful if your deed spelled out that you have the rights to wind, water, pore space, the right to grant easements, I don't know if gravel is considered a mineral right in the state of TX but I would want it as the surface owner, just to be safe. Yes you can mention all of the rights of surface ownership just to be certain that you have all of them or that you have recourse if the seller does not have them and leads you to believe that you are buying them. Run the deed past your own lawyer before you make the purchase.
Re: Surface and subsurface rights ... Save yourself a consultation fee and contact Judon Fambrough of jfambrough@mays.tamu.edu
r w kennedy said:
The previous deed does not spell out all of the parts of surface ownership the seller has. It might be helpful if your deed spelled out that you have the rights to wind, water, pore space, the right to grant easements, I don't know if gravel is considered a mineral right in the state of TX but I would want it as the surface owner, just to be safe. Yes you can mention all of the rights of surface ownership just to be certain that you have all of them or that you have recourse if the seller does not have them and leads you to believe that you are buying them. Run the deed past your own lawyer before you make the purchase.
Gravel is not a mineral right in Texas.
Yes, you're right, the wording is totally screwed up. The Seller agreed to convey "only the surface and executive rights," but the first reservation does not appear to reserve the actual minerals or the shut-in royalties, only some of the other financial benefits of the minerals. From my reading of this information, you would be receiving surface, executive rights, shut-in royalty, and a Non-Participating Mineral Interest (NPMI).
It is not very wise to keep all the financial benefits of the minerals but convey to another party the means by which one GETS those benefits (the executive rights to sign a Lease). The person owning the executive rights has a fiduciary obligation to negotiate in good faith on behalf of the non-executive only if he chooses to do so. So if he decides for whatever reason that he does not want to sign the lease, there is not much that the non-executive can do about it, I don't think.