The Risks of Bad Advice
Winstead HOA Law Webinar: Deed Restriction Compliance – Legal Process
Bar Exam Toolbox Podcast Episode 207: Listen and Learn -- Recording Statutes (Real Property)
Preserving Black History in Bucks County, PA, with Recorder of Deeds Robin Robinson: On Record PR
Under Van Dyke, deeds with double-fraction royalty reservations referencing “1/8” are presumed to reserve a floating royalty interest unless clearly contradicted. Defenses like waiver, ratification, and limitations cannot...more
Foreshadowing a grim future for family weddings and funerals, Bell and Petsch v. Petch is a property dispute over five tracts of land in Gillespie County, Texas, in which siblings are the combatants. The events are less...more
Let’s assume your grandfather owned 99 acres in Washington County. In 1955, he sells a small portion of the farm to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in order to facilitate the construction of new State Route 39. This acreage...more
The calculation of production royalties and the deduction of post-production costs remains a controversial topic here in Pennsylvania. As we have written before, there is another frustrating and often confusing...more
Let’s begin with some Texas law on what a seller sells when he executes a deed: Generally, a Texas real property deed will confer upon the grantee the greatest estate as the terms of the instrument will permit. This...more
You might recall this post on Broadway National Bank, Trustee v. Yates Energy Corporation. We now have Yates Energy Corporation et al v. Broadway National Bank, Trustee, the court of appeals’ ruling after remand. Recall the...more
Those who continue to be horrified by Broadway National Bank, Trustee v. Yates Energy Corp. should be relieved that the result in Endeavor Energy Resources, LP v. Anderson was more equitable. In Yates, the Texas Supreme Court...more
The question presented in Aaron v. Fisher et al: Did mineral deeds bestow separate property upon the grantees by gift, or did they convey a community property interest to the grantees and their spouses by sale for...more
The question in litigation is usually “WHAT”: what happened, what contract was breached, what did someone do or fail to do, and so on. In Hughes v. CJM Resources, LP, the question was, “WHO” had the right to file the suit in...more
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. International Development Corporation resolved the question, In a 100 year old Pennsylvania deed is a “subject to” provision an exception to a grant or a warranty disclaimer?...more
It was jurisprudential Groundhog Day as the Supreme Court of Texas handed down Nettye Engler Energy v. Bluestone Natural Resources, another in a series of postproduction cost disputes, only two days after Puxsutawney Phil...more
What if you pay good money for a mineral interest and record the deed in the official public records, thereby securing your title? What if your predecessors-in-title decide among themselves they made a material mistake in a...more
Bell v. Midway Petroleum Grp., L.P., 9th Dist.] Mar. 18, 2021 was a trespass to try title action, suit to quiet title for possession of a land, and a counterclaim for title by adverse possession. ...more
When Winston Churchill used this phrase in 1906 in his speech to the House of Commons, he probably did not have in mind the construction of language contained in a deed. Nevertheless, terminological inexactitude in drafting a...more
WTX Fund, LLC v. Brown, is Texas mineral deed construction case. In the same year that crazy thing happened at Coogan’s Bluff, the Roaches executed a Mineral Conveyance to the Holts. Let’s review the transaction and ask...more
The question for the Texas Supreme Court in Piranha Partners et al. v. Joe B. Neuhoff et al. was whether an assignment of an overriding royalty in minerals conveyed the override only in production from the identified well...more
Marsha Ellison v. Three Rivers Acquisition, LLC, et al. reminds us what is required for an instrument to be a conveyance and what is required for a stipulation to be effective....more
On December 13, 2018, in Blackstone v. Moore, 2018-Ohio-4959, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that a reference that includes the type of interest created and to whom the interest was granted is sufficiently specific to preserve...more
BNSF v. Chevron Midcontinent LP et al. asked whether a 1903 deed granted BNSF’s predecessor a strip of land in fee simple absolute or only an easement. The result: BNSF holds only an easement. There’s more to the case than an...more