Mineral Rights On Surburban Property (Dallas, Arlington: insurance, school district, law)

[wmardis]

We have a single family property that was taken by condemnation in 1996 by Arlington Independent School District. We have two single family properties that were taken by the City of Arlington for the Dallas Cowboy's footbal stadium. It is my understanding that the condemnation only takes the surface rights, not the mineral rights. Does anyone know anything about this. Also when we originally bought the properties, we purchased a title insurance policy. I presume this gives full rights to the property, both surface rights and mineral rights

[Idaho]

You might start with the Texas Land & Mineral Owners Assoc. website:

http://www.tlma.org/water.htm (broken link)

The Bureau of Land Management may also be able to answer your questions, specifically their Texas regional offices.

I found the BLM very helpful when I needed to explore my mineral rights and responsibilities in another state. That state's version of TLMOA was a great resource too.

Hope that helps direct you a little. Land Law is very complicated to us 'regulars' and it's hard to know where to turn for advice.

Good luck to you.

[tnvolfan1971]

I work for a local Title and Abstracting company and we get this question alot. My best advice would be to contact a local title company and have them do what is known as a Limited Title Search. (cost between $150-$200, depending on the company) Ask them about searching for mineral rights. What you need to specifically need to look for is if the seller retained the mineral rights when they sold you the property. If you have any more questions, please feel free to email me directly and I will see if I can guide you in the right direction.