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Texas General Rule Cities Cannot Enforce Building Codes in Their...
The Texas Supreme Court recently decided an important real estate case in Town of Lakewood Village v. Bizios. Bizios was lived outside of Lakewood Village, Texas. Bizios was sued by Lakewood Village...
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What Do Netflix, Amazon and Oil & Gas Have in Common?
The Deep Carbon Observatory at the Carnegie Institution for Science is using “Big Data” to locate deposits of minerals, using techniques similar to those used by Amazon to recommend books based on a...
View ArticleOmitted Legal Descriptions in Sale of Oil and Gas Leases in Texas
In a case that is probably a recurring nightmare for oil and gas attorneys, the Texas Court of Appeals recently addressed the question of what constitutes a material change to a written agreement...
View ArticleDid a Texas Deed Convey a Mineral Interest or a Royalty Interest?
When you ask a Texas oil and gas or real estate attorney to draft a deed for you, one of the first things they will ask you is just what do you want to convey: the surface, the water rights, the...
View ArticleIs a Texas Home-Equity Loan With Constitutional Defects Void or Voidable?
What happens when a Texas family discovers that the home equity loan on their home did not satisfy the constitutional requirements for homestead liens in the Texas Constitution? In the case of Wood v....
View ArticleVolunteer Efforts Help Texas Battle Hurricane Harvey
No question about it: Hurricane Harvey and its aftermath have been horrible. It will be a very long time before things return to anything like “normal” for a lot of people. One of the few things that...
View ArticleThe United States Continues to Lead in Oil and Gas Production
Interesting to realize that United States has overtaken Saudi Arabia and Russia to become the world’s largest oil and gas producer and continues to lead in production. On April 7, 2016, the U.S. Energy...
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DNA Used to Predict Oil and Gas Deposits
A company known as Biodentify, based in the Netherlands, announced that it can help predict oil and gas deposits based on DNA in the soil just a foot beneath the surface! Specifically, the company...
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New Oil Recovery Techniques Will Benefit Texas Royalty Owners
Graph courtesy of EOG Resources EOG Resources has been experimenting with enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques that may be good news for Texas mineral and royalty owners. Specifically, EOG has been...
View ArticleTexas Court Interprets a 1/8 Royalty Clause
As we discussed recently regarding the Texas Supreme Court case of Hysaw v. Dawkins, 483 SW 3d 1 (2016), old deeds, oil and gas leases, and other documents containing “1/8th royalty” clauses continue...
View ArticleIn Texas Royalty Suits, Must All Neighboring Property Owners Be Joined?
Collecting royalties from oil and gas production is one of the ways that a Texas landowner can generate revenue from their real estate. Texas property owners who own their minerals can sign an oil and...
View ArticleAirborne Particles Can Be the Basis for a Trespass Claim in Texas
Given the increase in production of natural gas in Texas, some residents end up living close to a gas compressor stations. These stations are necessary to pump natural gas under pressure over long...
View ArticleIs There A Constitutional Remedy of Forfeiture for Breach of a Home Equity...
The Texas Supreme Court recently addressed whether a lender is required to forfeit payment and interest payments made by a borrower when the lender has violated the terms of a home equity loan, and...
View ArticleTexas Railroad Commission Amends Pipeline Safety Rules
The staff of the Texas Railroad Commission is proposing amendments to the pipeline safety rules for oil and gas and other pipelines in Texas. These amendments will affect rules 18.1, 18.4 and 18.11....
View ArticleTexas Co-Tenancy Law and Oil And Gas Leases: Radcliffe v Tidal Petroleum
Texas mineral owners contact me from time to time and ask why an oil company is drilling on their land when they haven’t signed an oil and gas lease. The answer to these questions lies in the Texas law...
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Changes to Texas Home Equity Loan Statute
On November 7, 2017, Texas voters approved SJR 60. You can review the text of the new law here. This law includes several amendments to Article XIV, Section 50 of the Texas Constitution that concern...
View ArticleWhat Is The True Cost of Environmental Regulation?
When it comes to U.S. energy policy, federal government regulations unquestionably limit competition and innovation, and the people who suffer for it are the consumers and taxpayers. While the...
View ArticleWhat Are the Requirements for a Nuisance Claim In Texas?
Nuisance claims are a bit of a muddled area of Texas law. As Justice Boyd stated in the opinion: “This is a nuisance case, but that does not tell you much. As a legal concept, the word nuisance ‘has...
View ArticleWhat To Do When Someone Wants to Buy Your Texas Mineral Interests
I get calls every week from folks who have received a letter in the mail offering to purchase their Texas mineral interests. I tell all my clients (and anyone else who will listen) never to sell their...
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Overhead Power Lines and Helicopters: Texas Surface Owner Wins Accommodation...
When a mineral estate and a surface estate co-exist, there is sometimes conflict. Under Texas law, the owner of the mineral estate is considered to be the “dominant” estate over the surface estate...
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