"Title acres" listed on the unit I'm in does not match the actual acreage that I leased by 4 acres

Hello everyone. I'm in Beaver County, Pa. I own and pay taxes on 10 acres. I am leased with Chspk for my 10 acres and a unit has been formed and filed at the courthouse. The unit document states that I have 6.174 acres as the "Net acres in unit"..However it states that I have 6.188 acres as my "Title acres".  Everyone around me is leased but their " Net acres" and "Title acres" amounts only differ by a small decimal number.  It looks to me as though I'm getting screwed out of almost 4 acres! My lease is for 10 acres. What gives? Anyone have any ideas. Thank you.

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Permalink Reply by Dexter Green on November 4, 2014 at 5:59am

Acres in unit and actual acres are different things.  They didn't put all of your acreage in, which is common.

Permalink Reply by Philip Brutz on November 4, 2014 at 6:43am

Have you seen the plat map for the unit?  Is all of your land in the unit?

Permalink Reply by Dave Rose on November 4, 2014 at 8:07am

Hello. Thank you for responding. I have seen the plat map online from the courthouse and all of my property is included. A couple of my neighbors have only part of their land included but it lists  the total acres that they own under the "Title acres" heading and the amount in the unit as "Net acres". The term "Title acres" to me sounds like the total acreage that you own and I know how much property my neighbors own. I guess I should just ask ...What does the term  "Title acres" mean on a Plat Map.

Permalink Reply by Philip Brutz on November 4, 2014 at 9:27am

Next dumb question.  Have you had your property surveyed? 

Permalink Reply by Dave Rose on November 4, 2014 at 12:13pm

I have not had my property surveyed other than the frontage when I bought a new manufactured home. It was not a complete survey. I am not aware of any mineral severance.

Permalink Reply by Dexter Green on November 4, 2014 at 10:02am

Is there any possibility of an existing but heretofore unknown mineral severance?

Permalink Reply by sldouglass on November 4, 2014 at 1:14pm

People do not worry about this kind of detail when they are signing leases.  But as you have discovered acreage matters.  That is the way royalties are divided up - your acreage as a percentage of the total acreage in the unit.

The tax collector's stated assessed acreage is notoriously inaccurate.  Often acreage is understated and no taxpayer will complain about that.

 Fairness would seem to require all the acreage in the unit to be surveyed by the same surveyor using the same survey standards - and hope that the surveyor is having a good day and making minimum mistakes.  Certainly ancient surveys are less accurate than those done currently.

And when the surveyor is computing your acreage is s/he including "unusable" land you own under roads, waterways, railroads etc.

Maybe the answer to your lesser acreage number is - all of your land is not included in the unit under consideration.  If not, it is likely to be included in some future unit - someday.

Then you have to worry about the acreage in the unit.  Units should not be based upon property lines.  If they are you can count on conflict someday.  Units should be based the area that is likely to be produced from the wells.  The wells in a well pad might make a logical unit.  That would result in a rectangle running NNW-SSE about 1.5 miles assuming wells are drilled about 3/4 miles in each direction.  The width of the rectangle would seem to depend on the number of wells on the well pad.  If there were 4 wells, 2 running NNW and 2 running SSE capturing gas 250 feet from the horizontal well bore [wells are often drilled 500' apart, then the logical width of the unit would be 1000'.

Has anyone added the total of all properties in the unit to see if they match the total unit acreage?

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