How do I tell how many net mineral acres I have? I have the deed and property tax statement. I have just inherited mineral rights and am receiving three royalty checks each month. Just trying to figure things out and learn all I can.
What did it say in the will?
Well you go back to land grant sometimes called Patent.
at that point the party owned 100%.
then there was a sale and it either included a reservation of none, some or all of the minerals.
So lets assume that eh seller retained 1/4 of the minerals and thus conveyed 75%.
Then... somewhere you obtained some ownership.
It is simply a formula that computes to your net acres.
Now, this business is full of "professionals" who round up or down and to date i have never seen where they round in my favor. As I told one recently, if you want to round the number, you must round in my favor, otherwise the exact number is fine.
Now you might ask how does that happen. well lets say that we own 1/4 of the abstract and that the standard size is one square mile or 640 acres. Going back to land grant days, the Abstract is actually 670 acres. For my 1/4 they say my net acres are 160 (640/4) but actually is it 167.5 (670/4)
I most recently hear, "I guess you are right but it is insignificant." well at a bonus of say $1,000 per net acre, it is the same work for me to get $167,500 as it is to get $160,000. Also when they compute the royalty, this leads yet again to rounding, which is not in my favor.
good luck and ask lots of questions.