Senate Bill 445 needs our support! WE CAN GET OUR VOICES HEARD!

Are you a landowner who has paid the property taxes yearly, maintained the land, and supported the community in which the land lies only to find you own but a portion, or worse, none, of the sub-surface mineral rights?  Are the sub-surface reservations a 100 years old or more?  Do you consider this an outrage that heirs of an a party who owned YOUR land over 100 years ago can rob YOUR heirs and YOU of the full compensation due you for leasing your lands?  Do you know friends or neighbors who are in this unhappy situation?  I am sure you do as mineral rights reservations of 50-100% are frightfully common in Pennsylvania.

 

If so, please contact your senator asking them to support Senate Bill 445 that Senator Yaw of Bradford County is trying to get to the floor for a vote.  Please see his website where SB 445 is explained.  BTW, his is a terrific, information packed site, one of the best I have ever seen by a government official.  I urge you to explore it and to shoot him an email thanking him for his efforts on our behalf.

http://senatorgeneyaw.com/legislation.htm

 

In addition to supporting Senator Yaw we need to contact our respective state senators to ask that they support SB 445.  I have contacted my senator down here in Dauphin County and have emailed several landowners from my area asking them to do the same.  This is important for the state as well because much of the state forest and game lands have their mineral rights reserved by a family of lumber barons from a 100 years ago.  These heirs own mineral rights to 27,000 acres of Pa land.  A hundred years ago their forefathers stripped and raped the forests of its lumber and now they want to continue the practice beneath our feet!  Many land owners in Clinton Co. have zero sub-surface ownership rights and have O & G goons climbing all over their land without any compensation, or I might add PERMISSION, to the landowner who pays the property taxes and maintains that land!  Can you imagine how violated and helpless they must feel?

 

Here is a link where you can easily locate your State Senator:

http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/findyourlegislator/i...

 

PLEASE, I URGE YOU TO INFORM AS MANY AS YOU CAN OF THIS BILL AND REQUEST THEY CONTACT THEIR RESPECTIVE STATE SENATORS.  WE CAN GET OUR VOICES HEARD!

 

 

 

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Laurel on December 12, 2011 at 8:46am

He knows and there is more to come.

Permalink Reply by Billy Park Whyde on April 15, 2012 at 4:39am

  I myself would have to be against the bill. If a big IF would be the owner of the mineral rights would have the option to sell those rights before giving them away for nothing in return.As one individual pointed out some individuals bought land cheap knowing full well they were not buying the mineral rights. I doubt if the seller of the property envisioned a auto giveaway of the mineral rights when the mineral rights holder has very little to do with mandating a well be drilled upon that property to retain the mineral rights.

 THE POINT IS IF YOU BOUGHT THE LAND WITHOUT MINERAL RIGHTS THAT HAS THE BUYERS FAULT.

 Here though is a chilling Bill he introduced that I would SAY ABSOLUTELY NO TOO!

SB 744 – Legislation which would grant authority to local taxing authorities to assess royalty interests as real estate.  This would apply only to producing wells.  Until 2002, gas wells were subject to the assessment laws in Pennsylvania, but the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that gas wells were not to be included in the law.  This legislation would fill the hole noted by the Supreme Court.

Permalink Reply by Little Cougar on April 15, 2012 at 5:19am

You know what I think, Laurel...sour grapes...just plain old sour grapes by you and the people who bought the land knowing you were not getting the mineral rights.  There wasn't any complaints when you bought the land until this boom came along, and that is bull about your heirs not getting their due.  What about my ancestors who farmed that land, originally negotiated those leases with the O&G's and hoped to have something to leave to their heirs.  I paid plenty of taxes this year on those royalties...big time!!!! And I was happy to be able to do so...so stop the madness.  I'm so tired of the rabble rousers and the environmentalists that twist the stories just because they didn't do their due diligence when they bought the land...Enough!!!!

Permalink Reply by Michael Omerzo on April 15, 2012 at 5:47am

And I also sold my land much lower than what it is worth thinking there would be no problems later.  i gave people the chance to own land who may or never will get a chance.  This Bill will hurt alot of future and current land owners.

2s72s0k9mm8gdPermalink Reply by 2s72s0k9mm8gd on April 15, 2012 at 6:19am

LC:

Lately I have been witnessing alot of "sour grapes" rhetoric here on GMS and have to just shake my head and wonder why........but then I remind myself that it is human nature and greed that is the usually at the root. As lease bonus and royalty % have increased , so has the "Lessor's Remorse" of the "already signed at lower numbers" increased! You have to wonder why some folks ever leased in the first place.....? The hindsight dissection of every microscopic detail of every word of every lease gets a little trying at times. We all need to grow up and accept what is as just the way it is and stop whining!

IMO If this bill would pass we may as well all be New Yorkers , as the industry will come to a screaching hault until all the leases are reviewed and modified to suit......aaaaarrrrrggghh!!!!

Permalink Reply by mbc on April 27, 2012 at 9:26am

Preach it sister! 

There's a section of my property that has about 800 feet of a shared drive.   Shortly after the adjoining property was sold we were doing some work that required a buried utility line from the "other" side of the drive, which meant a minor and temporary disturbance of the gravel drive.  The new neighbor questioned the out going neighbor as to the allowance of such activity.  It was explained to them that the drive had a 60+ year recorded easement on the deed(s) that allowed them to drive on our property to get to theirs.

No problem, of course, one should always ask questions, but these people were both lawyers and apparently never actually looked at the deed they had recently signed!

Permalink Reply by Cindy Stuben on April 27, 2012 at 5:21am

I still don't know who owns the gas and oil rights. If the deed said coal and mineral ,, who owns the gas and oil?

Permalink Reply by Cindy Stuben on May 1, 2012 at 8:40am

I live in Pa and own 1 property that I own the oil and gas, but not the coal or minerals. The other property I don't own coal or minerals but no mention of gas or oil. I can't see why it would be assumed the coal and mineral owner would owns the oil and gas?

 

Permalink Reply by Cindy Stuben on May 2, 2012 at 1:17am

Thanks ,, I have been doing some research but can't find a definative answer yet.

Jim ShoosPermalink Reply by Jim Shoos on April 27, 2012 at 7:24am

I think I will introduce a Bill that provides that when the surface owner doesn't take care of the property, or live on the property, that the mineral rights owner can take over the surface rights... makes a whole lot of sense when you put the shoe on the other foot, right???  NOT

Permalink Reply by Oliver Perry on May 2, 2012 at 3:13am

Excellent point Jim, this bill is going nowhere and rightfully so. My great grandfather was smart enough to reserve the oil, gas & coal rights to his property almost a hundred years ago, and his heirs have retained those rights to this point and hopefully will continue that forever.

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