Caculations off Old Deeds

[sohrel]

Trying to calculate net mineral acres off some old family deeds that say the following:

92% of undivided 3.333/240 mineral interest fee

Would the gross acres be 240 acres and the net mineral acres be 78.269?

Thanks for the guidance!

[tracy_lenz]

It really depends on the context of the entire deed. I’ve seen it a few ways.

(Nothing like mixing percentages, decimals, and fractions all in one sentence! haha)

The gross acreage will be what is described in text, usually “E/2 of section 32” (which should be ~320 acres) or “All of Section 3, consisting of 441.4 acres” (not all sections are 640 acres). Or “SW/4 and W/2 SE/4” which should be ~240 acres.

(Or if your acreage is in Texas, you could have “fifty-five paces West to the wagon wheel, 120 yards to the North, then West to the old oak tree”…oh Texas)

That description you provided could be saying 92% of 3.333 acres of 240 gross acres, or it could be saying 92% of 3.333/240ths of the gross acres.

I’m sure some land/legal specialists in here could chime in with more detail, but I’d personally need to see the whole deed to know for sure what it’s saying.

[RachelTalasaz]

I agree with Tracy. The entire language of the deed would help with the interpretation. I could see it being either 92% of 3.333 acres while trying to describe the 3.333 out of 240 acres so the total would be 92%*3.333=3.06636 acres. It could also be 92% of 3.333/240 or a total of 0.0127765 acres. I’m sure there are also several other ways to calculate it.