I have received an offer to “remise, release, relinquish, surrender, quitclaim and waive all right to use or occupy the surface of the Property and of the subsurface area located between the surface and the first five hundred feet (500’) beneath the ground surface” for my mineral rights in Angelina County, Texas.
What does anyone know about this? It appears they could then lease this in the future…in addition to using it for a proposed solar power field.
They are offering me a one time amount with no royalties…
Based on what you posted I’m assuming you own all, or a majority, of the mineral rights in that piece of land but someone else owns the surface rights.
If that’s correct I assume the surface owner, or someone planning to acquire the surface, wants to assure they will have “surface control”. That wouldn’t be unusual if someone is planning to build there.
If you sell those rights then you, and anyone you lease your mineral interest to, wouldn’t be able to drill there, or to carryout any of the other types of operations a mineral interest owner has the right to do even when they don’t own the surface.
Don’t take this as legal advice, but the phrase …surface and first 500’ beneath…appears to say these folks are willing to let you retain the right to carryout mineral operations that are done through directional drilling, or pooling, as long as those operations don’t impact the top 500 feet of the tract.
If the price these folks are willing to pay is appealing, and the tract you are talking about is small, the rights you would be giving up may not be that important, since it’s likely any operator interested in leasing your mineral interest would have to control other tracts in the area inorder to have the acreage required for a drilling unit. If the tract you are talking about is large, an option might be to granting the waiver but reserving specific drill site locations.
In any case, consult an attorney before agreeing to give up any of your rights.