…and if I had not had the surface waiver in the sales contract and had not excluded all operations in the oil and gas lease, the reservation in my transfer deed would have included language to reserve the right of ingress and egress for development of my mineral interest.
6th Generation Texan said:
Hi Cathy,
Whenever I put some land in Texas on the market last year, I made it known to the realtor listing the property for sale that I was reserving all of my 50% interest in the minerals pertaining to the oil and gas. Whenever I got a contract from a Buyer, the Farm & Ranch sales contract stated that the deed to Buyer from Seller will contain the following reservation:
X hereby reserves and retain for themselves, their legal representatives, successors and assigns forever, all of their undivided interest in the oil, gas and other minerals in, under, and that may be produced from the property (collectively the Oil and Gas), provided, however, not included within the definition of Oil and Gas are minerals that form a part of the surface or soil such as sand, iron ore, gravel, uranium or limestone.
I further waived and relinquished any use of the Surface of the property for the exploration and/or removal of such Oil or Gas. The reason I was able to waive use of the surface is that when I negotiated an oil and gas lease on the property prior to selling, I excluded any surface operations from the lease. I concluded that most Buyers might want to build a house and not be subject to drilling on that tract. However, with a horizontal well, my minerals can be pooled into a non-drill site unit. I would have had difficulty selling the property at my price without the surface waiver. The oil company wasn’t thrilled about the surface waiver, but they had other leases for a drill site and knew they weren’t getting my lease without it. They can deal with the new surface owner should the need arise.
Whenever the transfer deed was drawn up for me to sign as Grantor, the same reservation language was in the Warranty Deed as in the sales contract. As others advised you, the deed must have the mineral reservation or else they pass to the Buyer with the land.