Hi All. My family mined and retained coal on an 80-acre farm in PA. While researching deeds, we found that a local coal company signed leases and mined coal with an agreement with the surface owners. Where do I begin?
I don’t have a lot to suggest but I think some pertinent questions would be: has your family been paying taxes on the minerals (if they are taxed in PA), have there ever been operations to extract the coal you have deeded to, and is the extraction of the coal ongoing? Some leases expire with no operations occurring.
Because your question pertains to Pennsylvania, I would suggest you check out a website whose primary focus is Pennsylvania. Don’t get me wrong—good people and good info is here too. But this Pennsylvania website has a large number of members from Pennsylvania and they are very knowledgeable and helpful. The site is pagaslease DOT com.
See what you learn here, but also check with the folks there.
Good luck.
Thanks all! The minerals are not taxed in PA and were extracted from our farm and several others.
You say that your family retained coal. Did they retain the rights to all seams, or was one (or more) seams sold off? It seems to be relatively common in western PA to have sold rights to the Pittsburgh (aka River) seam, but retain the rest.
All coal and support underneath the surface.