Re: Your thoughts on mineral rights

Posted by Mike (WA) on September 17, 2004 at 18:15:40 from (209.213.153.79):

In Reply to: Your thoughts on mineral rights posted by Redmud on September 17, 2004 at 13:06:09:

In the Pacific Northwest timber country, all the land was owned, at one time, by the timber companies of the day. When they had logged the land and were ready to sell it, they reserved the mineral rights, as a matter of course, and could generally talk the buyers into buying without the mineral rights because there weren't any minerals in the area, anyhow. So now, most of the mineral rights are owned by the successors in interest to the Chehalis Mill Company, the Carlisle Mill Company, Weyerhauser, etc.
2 anecdotes: 1) I used to be a loan officer for Production Credit Association, and we had to do title searches on collateral every year. We had a customer with a small dairy, to whom we extended unsecured credit every year. One year, he decided to do a big expansion, and, for the first time, we took his farm as collateral. When I went to do the title exam, the fee title to the land was not a problem: he had owned it free and clear since 1946. However, the mineral rights were a nightmare- they were conveyed at least once a year, and often more frequently, among 3 different people. When I mentioned it to the owner, he just started laughing. It seems that, as a joke, he and his siblings would deed the mineral rights to each other as rewards for good deeds done, Christmas or birthday presents, penalties for bad acts, etc. What was interesting was that they would actually pay the recording costs and record the conveyances, leading to the nightmare for one searching title.
2) I'm a lawyer, and was approached by a kindly little old man who said he owned the mineral right on certain property, and, to put his affairs in order, wanted to convey his mineral rights to the fee owner of the property. He said the owner of the property didn't know who he was, but he had observed activities at the property from afar, and had decided that the owners were doing a good job raising their children, etc, and were worthy of an anonymous gift. I did the gift, and sent an appropriate letter to the recipient. Its nice to see people do the right thing once in awhile.

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