Sorry Jennymama, I don't have any answers for you, but I hope you get them!

This is one of the reasons I love coming to this board. You learn something new everyday. This is a subject that never dawned on me.

Good luck!

It sounds like you are dealing with inexperienced buyers. There is absolutely no way you can, or should, guarantee 100% there will be no issues--ridiculous. In terms of securing 100 yr. old mineral rights for them--again nearly impossible. Your county records office probably has some documentation regarding who owns these rights. It should also be in your deed. With that there are a couple of possibilities: the rights have expired, the rights are owned by a long dead company or individual.

Are there any mines in the area? What would make them think this might be an issue?

I hate to say it, but as a FSBO, with what seems to be an inexperienced buyer, I would plan on going on to the next buyer. Sometimes buyers are unrealistic and will never close. This sounds like such a buyer.

It seems like a minor issue, especially since the house isn't on the area in question. However, it may not be totally unrealistic to worry about. In SW Pa, there was underground coal mining for years and years, and houses have been known to suddenly collapse when things shift below.

Thanks sparkals for the kind words...afraid dh and I started celebrating too soon (and telling everyone too soon, haha).

The mineral rights were something we really didn't give a second thought to. We hope to get some answers by talking to a couple of people whose families have lived here for a long time, and we *think* we might know the owner 2 transactions ago (the house was just built in 2002). If so, he owns literally 1,000's of acres in our area. Not sure if he holds the mineral rights, though.

rrah...No mines anywhere remotely near us. The buyers are retired from MO, and they seem to be quite particular about things, although they have been extremely upfront and easy to work with. They have the cash in the bank for our home, even though they have to sell their current home. Ugh! It just makes me sick and I'm just soooo surprised that mineral rights would be a deal breaker. Evidentely, they have looked at land in GA, TN, southern AR and refused land that they couldn't get the mineral rights to. He says that drilling for natural gas has increased, and evidently they started drilling for natural gas in southern AR, therefore, it COULD happen on our land (what would someone want with a measly 5 acres that is on a hill with a bunch of bedrock? I just can't wrap my mind around it!)
We have a real estate agent that has been kind enough to help us free of charge (he sold us the house, and will be selling us land on which to build). He thought it was crazy, too. He has run nto problems a couple of times with mineral rights, but ultimately the buyers purchased without the rights (140 + acres). Our agent suggested the buyer go to any title company and talk to them, as they will all tell him there is nothing valuable in the ground around here! The buyers response was, well, they probably didn't think there was anything valuable in the ground in southern AR, and now they're digging for natural gas.
The deal was so great for our situation...we just hate to lose the deal. The burden is on us to figure this out.
I'll keep you posted, and I appreciate the replys! Any other ideas are surely welcome!

No one in my area owns the mineral rights to any portion of their property. So it would not be an issue for me.

You cannot give them a 100% guarantee...

Hi western pa,

I understand that I cannot give them a 100% guarantee (unless we are able to get the rights). I think that was their way of saying, no mineral rights, no deal. :(

I still have a small hope that we will be able to contact the owner of the mineral rights since this is a rural area with a few families owning much of the land. We're hoping we can buy the rights from whoever the owner may be.

You might just have to let these buyers go. The mineral rights most likely will revert back to the state if a company is leasing it.

berniek,

There is no company leasing it. And as far as ANYONE around here knows, there are NO minerals, gas, etc. anywhere around here.

In fact, everyone we've told has laughed...most people don't even have a clue who has the mineral rights to their property.

After some preliminary research, I found that in AR the state can come to your land basically with/without your permission if they feel there is minerals/gas to be found.

We have a real estate attorney that we will discuss this with on Monday (why do things always happen on the weekend?), surely he'll have had this issue in the past.

I own surface and mineral rights in Oklahoma. If an oil company wants to drill on your land and take your minerals, they'll have to pay you for surface damages and for a share of the minerals, but you cannot keep them from drilling.

Hi quandary,

The same is true in AR, according to what I have researched (except they don't HAVE to clean up the job site, but would make effforts to). Do you happen to know if there is a certain number of drills allowed in a particular mile radius? I have been trying to find that info out for AR, but no luck yet.

We DO own the surface and mineral rights on our front 5 acres...where it would be much, much easier to drill - it would take a TON of work to try and drill on the back 5.

I'm just so frustrated... :(

Check with the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission in Fort Smith. They can tell you the well spacing for your property.

DH is a geologist. He just told me there probably no spacing for your area because there is no gas there. The rocks for that area that would hold natural gas are too shallow. He said the shale play which is the natural gas drilling and leasing you are hearing about is below Marshall.

Here is a link that might be useful: AOGC

Clarifications:

Below Marshall means south of Marshall.

Either the rocks that would contain natural gas such as the Fayettvile Shale are too shallow where you live or more likely do not exist because they have eroded away.

I get where the buyers are coming from. They don't want a POSSIBLE gravel pit in their backyard. Gravel pits can mess with the water table and create alot of dust not to mention noise from the digging and visually they just aren't pleasing to the eye.
My guess is they or someone close to them were once burned by this issue.
Only way I can see of saving the deal is to get the mineral rights back with the property owners.

adellabedella - thanks so much for the info. I have looked at that site and gained lots of info thus far. Our builder-to-be drills wells and he used to work on an oil rig in OK, and he researched the possibility of oil/gas and found that the dolemite (sp?) does not allow it to flow, although there may be pockets of it here and there, but not enough to justify the drilling.

Yes, Quitman/Heber Springs is the hot-spot right now for production.

Thanks again for the info.

I own the gas and oil rights, but not the coal rights, to my property. This is VERY important. Check your deed. If you DO NOT own them, they will have been reserved in the deed to you. Even if you do own them, it may be that an oil/gas exploration company was given the right at some point to drill on your property, in which event the owner of those rights would be given royalties. If the right to drill was given to someone, that someone has the right to come onto your property at any time, drill more wells (have to be 1,000 feet apart) and make roads on your property in order to get to the wells. You should check at your local courthouse and check the deeds going back. I checked all prior deeds to my property and in every one the coal rights were reserved. The oil and gas were not. The gas company has already drilled more wells on my property, made new roads (cut down trees), etc. Did you have a title search done when you bought the property. They would have surely found out about the mineral rights.

Not having mineral rights absolutely WOULD be a deal-breaker for me, if I were buying any amount of land larger than a small building lot.

My parents own about 100 acres in northwestern PA, and they recently had to go through their attorney to ensure that their deed declares the surface owner of their property also owns the mineral rights. Natural gas had been mined (collected? drilled? whatever the terminology) there at one point, but nothing has been done in that area for decades... however, with the price of natural gas skyrocketing, re-exploring these areas has apparently become profitable again.

What prompted them to re-check their deed was when they got a phone call from a company asking if they knew whether or not they DID have mineral rights, and if they did, would they be willing to "lease" them to said company. (These companies send investigators to county courthouses to pour over local deeds to determine who has mineral rights.) My parents farm their land, and they value their privacy on that land above almost everything else-- needless to say, they would sooner die than have a mining company come and take over their land for "speculating drilling" or whatever they were proposing to do.

Rosie is right-- if you DON'T own mineral rights to your property, you can't stop a company coming onto your property to drill and/or excavate. There are regulations that specify how far they can drill near your house, etc., but you can't deny them access to your property. Yes, they have to give you a percentage of compensation for ever unit of natural resources they collect from under your ground, but for many people, you can't put a price tag on that kind of invasion of privacy, not to mention the horrific environmental impact that comes with it.

No way would I ever consider buying land on which I didn't own the mineral rights. If you ask me, the OP's prospective buyers are smart cookies for worrying about such things.

I forgot to put in my previous post, "mineral" is not confined to gas, oil or coal, it covers many things. My deed specifically reserves "coal," I own the "gas and oil" but the term "mineral", when they say "mineral rights" includes many things. The gas company that drills on our land is very good to us, and most try to get along with the landowner. They have never left a mess, the land around the well-head is seeded, cut, etc. and they try to be as unintrusive as possible. They also cleared 10 acres of land for us to build our house, put in a $20,000 road for us (they have to maintain the road since they use it, but they didn't have to give us the type of road they did). They have paid us damages for our trees. The money I've received in royalties has already exceeded the cost of my land. My brother-in-law works for one of these gas companies and the people are wonderful. Well tenders (those whose job it is to check the wells weekly re pressure, etc). have a dangerous job. BIL tells stores of these guys getting shot at, threatened, etc. for doing the job they have the right to do.

Put me in the column with the people who wouldn't buy property that didn't include mineral rights. The information on the holder should be in your title insurance documents.

There seems to be some confusion here, and I'm sure the laws vary in different states, but in Oklahoma (and probably Arkansas, too), the fact that you own the surface and mineral rights to your property does not give you the right to forbid an oil company from drilling on your land to recover your minerals. They will contact landowners and minerals owners to negotiate a lease, but if you refuse, they'll get one anyway. They have to compensate you, but you can't stop them.

Quandary, you are correct. Dh isn't here to clarify today, but as I understand it, for gas wells you basically have three choices. You can 1.) take a royalty, 2.) take a lower royalty and a percentage based on how the well produces, or 3.) become a partner in the well. Oklahoma and Arkansas have some differences in how things are done, but I think the above is correct in both states. In the OP's case, there is no gas to be drilled so it doesn't really matter on that point. I'm not sure how it works for other minerals.

Also, spacing is not necessarily 1000 feet. It is different in different states/areas of the state and may also depend on the depth of the well.

Owning mineral rights also doesn't protect you from what the neighbors want. If the neighbors own the mineral rights to their prperty and allowed a company to come in and mine something such as gravel, you could still be affected the same as if it were on your property. There would still be all sorts of equipment on the roads you travel, blasting, dust, etc.

UPDATE

Well, after a long day of phone calls, and trying to track down the wrong owner(!), I will be heading to the courthouse tomorrow to do some digging (no pun intented!) to find the rightful owner. According to our lawyer, we are to exhaust all options (basically going to the courthouse and trying to track down the rightful owner), then we can do a 'quiet deed' by announcing it in the paper - if no response, then we can claim the deed to the mineral righs. Should take 45-60 days.
The buyer is great with this and although he has done some research on mineral rights since this (and understands there is no gas here), he still wants the mineral rights. He has his reasons - he is older and if he is to die before his wife, he doesn't want her to encounter any problems trying to sell the house/land). I understand that. Hopefully we can make this happen. We weren't planning on closing until after June 1st due to capital gain tax anyway, so this should work out ok. He is also ok with giving us our earnest money this Friday. Luckily, he is no hurry, and he has the money in the bank (!) for our house.

Oh, and our lawyer said there has never been a case in our county where the rights weren't obtained (and very rarely had to go in the paper). So I guess that is in our favor.

Thanks for all the responses. I will keep everyone posted.

I saw on DateLine or a similar show within the past 6 months...about mineral rights for natural STONE that is affecting lots of folks. I don't recall what kind of stone it was, (not granite, but something that is popular...).

Anyway, companies are coming in and tearing up the top 10 feet so of dirt to get out the big stones/rocks. Then the property owners have lost their vegatation, trees, etc.

I thought it was someplace in a country mountain region. The people bought the land to live in peace. Then the land got tore up all over the entire area and everyone is scared who is going to be next. The folks didn't know anything about mineral rights when they purchased, and never thought it would ever come into play.