Alabama mineral rights

Alabama Code § 40-20-35

The mineral documentary tax is declared to be in lieu of all ad valorem taxes on all nonproducing leasehold interests in oil, gas and other minerals created or assigned after October 12, 1957, and all nonproducing interests in those minerals, including royalty interests, thereafter conveyed to a grantee or excepted or reserved to a grantor separately and apart from the surface, are exempt from all ad valorem taxes levied by the state, a county, a municipality, a school district or any other taxing district. The section then adds that any sale for taxes of the surface, or of the remainder of the fee, does not in any manner whatsoever affect the interests exempted. Interests created BEFORE October 12, 1957 and owned separately from the surface are exempted on the same footing, but only on a condition: the owner must have applied to the probate judge of the county where the land lies, on an application giving the name and address of the applicant, the description and acreage, the fractional interest and its nature, the recording data for the instrument that created it, the length of the primary term, the number of mineral, royalty or lease acres claimed and the amount tendered, and must have paid a sum equivalent to the tax. Where such a sum is paid after October 1, 1957, the exemption applies only to taxes becoming a lien after it was paid.

Checked July 31, 2026. Read at sections 40-20-35 and 40-20-36. This is the sentence to carry away from the Alabama page, because in several states on this record the ordinary way an old severed interest quietly dies is that nobody pays a small annual tax on it and it is sold. Alabama has closed that route for interests severed after October 12, 1957 by taking them off the roll altogether. But read the second half of section 40-20-35 rather than the first, because the exemption for OLDER interests is not automatic: it is a condition precedent that an owner once applied and paid, and Alabama coal and mineral severances are frequently much older than 1957. Where nobody ever filed that application, the interest stays assessable, section 40-7-16 says it is returned separately for assessment, and section 40-10-1 lets a probate court order a sale of land for taxes assessed against any mineral right in it. So the question an Alabama owner of a pre-1957 interest should ask is not whether a dormant mineral act exists, because none does, but whether the application in section 40-20-36 was ever made. WHAT IS NOT READ: the tax sale machinery in title 40 chapter 10 beyond section 40-10-1, including notice to a separately assessed mineral owner and the redemption provisions at 40-10-120 and following; and whether counties in practice assess unexempted pre-1957 interests at all.

Alabama Code § 6-2-33

Nothing read for this record lapses, extinguishes or reverts a severed Alabama mineral interest for non use. Alabama has no dormant mineral interest statute. It also has no marketable record title act, which is the other statute that quietly ends old mineral claims in the states that have one. There is no period of inactivity to survive, no statement of claim or notice of intent to preserve that a mineral owner must file to stay alive, and no notice of lapse for a surface owner to record. The title governing property runs from general provisions through conveyances, partition, landlord and tenant, mortgages, liens, lost or unclaimed property and conservation easements, and contains no chapter on dormant minerals or on marketable title.

Checked July 31, 2026. THE INSTRUMENT BEHIND THIS NEGATIVE, so a reader can repeat it. The Alabama Legislature's site is a JavaScript application and a plain fetch of a section address returns the shell with no statute text in it, which reads like a dead source and is not. Behind it is a GraphQL endpoint the site uses itself, and one of its own operations returns every section under a chosen node in a single response. Every section HEADING in title 6, civil practice, in title 9, conservation and natural resources, and in title 35, property, was enumerated that way: 911, 1,326 and 848 headings, 3,085 in all, read on 2026-07-31. Not one is a dormant mineral act and not one is a marketable record title act. Every heading in those three titles containing "dormant", "abandon", "lapse", "forfeit", "revert", "extinguish" or "marketable" was then read to see what it was: abandoned property reported to the state, abandoned mine reclamation funds, lapsed OPTIONAL oil and gas leases being marked cancelled of record, forfeiture of hunting and fishing gear, and uncontrolled fires being extinguished. A WARNING ABOUT THE SITE'S OWN SEARCH, because it is a trap. The full text search on the Code of Alabama scores words rather than phrases: a search for "marketable record title" returns 8,104 sections, of which the top result is about the inspection of records by enforcement officers. It can find things and it can never establish that something is absent, which is why the enumeration above is what this negative rests on. WHAT THIS CANNOT EXCLUDE: a provision in a title that was not enumerated, adverse possession, which in Alabama runs on a ten year limitation for the recovery of land and on judge-made prescription this record did not read, and any Alabama decision, since nothing was fetched from a court.

Alabama Code § 40-7-16

Mineral, coal, oil, gas, timber and turpentine interests, when they have been so severed in ownership from the soil or trees, by sale or otherwise, are separately returned for assessment, and the return must show the land in or on which the interest is located. If the surface right only is assessed the description may be marked S.R., and if the mineral interest only is assessed it may be marked M.R., or carry another notation showing the nature of the interest and the acreage it covers. Separately, a documentary tax called the mineral documentary tax is levied on the filing and recording of every lease or other writing creating a leasehold interest in nonproducing oil, gas or other minerals, on every assignment or extension of one beyond its primary term, and on every deed or other writing by which any interest in or right to receive royalty from nonproducing minerals is conveyed to a grantee, or excepted or reserved to a grantor separately and apart from the surface. The amount runs off the length of the primary term: five cents per mineral or royalty acre where the term expires in ten years or less, ten cents where it runs more than ten and not more than twenty years, and fifteen cents where it may run beyond twenty years, with a minimum of one dollar. It is paid to the probate judge of the county where the land lies, who stamps the amount on the face of the instrument and notes it on the record.

Checked July 31, 2026. Read at sections 40-7-16 and 40-20-31 to 40-20-34 of the Code of Alabama. Two things here are worth separating from the ordinary. The first is that Alabama's assessment statute names the severance in the machinery itself rather than leaving it to case law: the letters M.R. and S.R. exist because a county assessor is expected to carry two owners for one description. The second is that the mineral documentary tax is levied on the ACT of severing or leasing, not on production and not on value. It is charged per mineral or royalty acre and the rate turns only on how long the primary term runs, so a long lease costs three times a short one and a hundred acres costs a hundred times an acre, whatever the minerals are worth. That design is the reason the exemption in the next rule works: Alabama has already collected something at the moment of severance, so it does not need to keep collecting every year. WHAT IS NOT READ: whether any Alabama decision has construed the mineral documentary tax, and section 40-20-37 beyond how the money is split.

Alabama Code § 9-17-161

The ownership of pore space in all strata below the surface lands and waters of the state is vested in the owners of the surface rights above, unless the pore space has previously been severed from the surface ownership or is explicitly excluded or reserved in a conveyance, and a conveyance of the surface carries the pore space on the same terms. The section then says something the other pore space statutes on this record do not: no previous agreement conveying or reserving oil, gas or other mineral interests acts to convey or reserve ownership of any pore space or carbon dioxide storage rights unless the agreement explicitly conveys or reserves subsurface space to be used for the geologic storage or sequestration of carbon dioxide. An agreement conveying the right to use a storage facility or pore space may not convey any other real property right, including oil, gas or other minerals, in the same instrument, and one that does is void, except for agreements executed before October 1, 2024. A storage operator must make a good faith effort to obtain the consent of all owners of a storage facility's pore space and storage rights, must obtain the consent of owners of not less than sixty six and two thirds percent of them, and may then ask the board to amalgamate and pool the nonconsenting owners in on just and reasonable terms, with all nonconsenting owners fairly and equitably compensated. An operator seeking to operate in the Blue Creek or Mary Lee coal seams in Jefferson, Tuscaloosa or Walker counties, or within a ten mile radius of any coal mine operation, must obtain the written consent of the coal mine operator and mineral owner, which may not be unreasonably withheld or delayed.

Checked July 31, 2026. Read at sections 9-17-161 and 9-17-162, enacted by Act 2024-325. This record now holds three answers to the pore space question and they are not the same answer. Utah vests title in the surface owner and then says the section neither increases nor diminishes any existing property right, which leaves the collision with an existing severed mineral estate to be argued. Nebraska approaches it from the other side, treating use of the pore space as a use that keeps a severed mineral interest alive. Alabama vests it in the surface owner and then settles the argument the Utah saving clause leaves open, in subsection (c), by declaring that an earlier mineral reservation did not carry it unless it said so in terms about carbon dioxide storage. For an Alabama mineral owner that is a loss stated plainly rather than left to litigation. The coal seam consent in section 9-17-162(7) is the other thing to notice: three named counties and two named seams get a veto in the statute itself, which is what a legislature does when the coal industry and the storage industry are both in the room. WHAT IS NOT READ: the rest of the carbon storage division at sections 9-17-150 to 9-17-166 beyond these two sections, including how compensation for a pooled nonconsenting owner is fixed, and section 9-17-153 on property rights in an underground gas storage reservoir.

Alabama Code § 9-17-24

Alabama's oil and gas chapter contains no surface damage act. A person proposing to drill a well in search of oil or gas must, before commencing drilling, notify the State Oil and Gas Supervisor on the prescribed form and pay a fee of three hundred dollars for each well, and drilling is prohibited until that notice is given and the fee paid. The form may be required to state the exact location of the well and the name and address of the owner, operator, contractor, driller and any other person responsible for the conduct of drilling operations. The surface owner is not among the people who must be notified, and the chapter's own definition of owner is the person who has the right to drill into and to produce from any pool and to appropriate the production. Nothing read in the chapter requires an operator to reach an agreement with the surface owner, to give the surface owner notice before entry, to post a bond running to the surface owner, or to pay for crop loss, lost improvements or permanent damage to the land.

Checked July 31, 2026. THE INSTRUMENT BEHIND THIS NEGATIVE. The whole of title 9 chapter 17, oil and gas, was fetched in one response through the Legislature's own API: 107 sections, 249,014 characters, read on 2026-07-31. The word "surface" appears 41 times in it and every one was read in context. None of them is a right of a surface owner. They are the surface acreage a unit is measured in, surface and subsurface rights acquired for a gas storage facility, surface mining to recover oil from oil sands, and land above pore space. The phrase "surface owner" does not appear in the chapter at all, and the phrase was checked as well as the word, because on this record California produced a false negative exactly that way: a search for "surface owner" in the California oil and gas chapter returned nothing while the state's duties sat under "surface property owner". Set the result against the states this record has already read: Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Kentucky and Utah all give a surface owner something by statute before or after entry, and Alabama gives none of them. What Alabama does protect is the ground over a COAL mine, which is the next rule, and that is a different statute in a different chapter with a different regulator. WHAT IS NOT READ: the Oil and Gas Board's own rules and regulations, which are published on its site and are not statute, and any Alabama decision on the implied right of a mineral owner to use the surface.

Alabama Code § 9-16-91

Underground coal mining operations conducted after July 1, 1998 must promptly repair or compensate for material damage to any occupied residential dwelling and related structures, or any noncommercial building, caused by surface subsidence. Repair includes rehabilitation, restoration or replacement, and compensation must be in the full amount of the diminution in value resulting from the subsidence damage; it may be accomplished by buying a non cancelable premium prepaid insurance policy before mining. The operator must also promptly replace any drinking, domestic or residential water supply from a well or spring that existed before the permit application and has been affected by contamination, diminution or interruption, and must promptly correct material subsidence damage to surface lands by restoring the land to a condition capable of maintaining the value and reasonably foreseeable uses it could support before. The statute then closes both ends. These remedies are the sole and exclusive remedies available to the owner for that damage and its effects, no punitive damages and no other compensatory damages are awarded for subsidence caused by longwall or other planned subsidence mining conducted in substantial compliance with a permit, and conduct in substantial compliance with the permit may not be deemed intentional, willful or wanton. But the remedies may not be diminished or waived by contrary provisions in deeds, leases or documents.

Checked July 31, 2026. Read at section 9-16-91, in the surface mining chapter rather than the oil and gas chapter. This is the Alabama provision worth understanding properly, because it is a floor and a ceiling in the same subsection. The floor matters in a state where coal was severed from the surface a century ago on terms written by the mining company: an old deed that purports to waive all damage from subsidence cannot take away the right to have the house repaired or the water replaced. The ceiling matters just as much: where the mining is planned subsidence conducted in substantial compliance with a permit, these statutory remedies are all there is, punitive damages are gone, and the statute forecloses the argument that permitted conduct was willful. The exception it leaves open is a genuine subsidence damage AGREEMENT between the surface owner and the mineral owner or lessee, which the statute expressly permits and which the waiver bar does not reach. Compare West Virginia and Kentucky, the other coal states on this record, and note that the regulator is different again: this chapter is administered by the surface mining regulatory authority, not by the Oil and Gas Board named on this page. WHAT IS NOT READ: the permit provisions at sections 9-16-83 and 9-16-84 that decide when an operator may mine under a home at all, the regulatory authority's own rules, and any Alabama decision on subsection (f).

Alabama Code § 9-17-13

Where interests from two or more separately owned tracts fall within a drilling or production unit and the owners have not agreed to pool, the board must require them to do so, after notice and hearing, on terms that are just and reasonable and that let each owner recover a just and equitable share without unnecessary expense. Costs of developing and operating the unit are charged to each tract in the same proportion as it shares in production, and where an owner who is not entitled to share free of costs does not pay them, they are recoverable solely out of that tract's production. When a charge is not paid when due, the operator may appropriate and sell thirteen sixteenths of the production allocated to that tract, or the working interest fraction if it is greater; but a three sixteenths part, or the actual landowner royalty if it is less, of the unit production allocated to each separately owned tract is in all events regarded as royalty and is paid to the persons owning royalty or unleased mineral interests free and clear of development and operating costs, of any risk compensation fee, and of any lien for them. Where the operator and consenting owners hold a majority of the drilling and operating rights and the operator has negotiated in good faith, identified the consenting owners, found the addresses of the nonconsenting owners, given each written notice of the proposed operation with its location, depth, objective formation and estimated cost, and offered each the chance to lease, farm out or participate on reasonable terms, the order may charge a nonconsenting owner who neither pays nor gives a notarised undertaking a risk compensation fee of one hundred and fifty percent of that tract's share of the actual and reasonable cost of drilling and completing the well. No risk compensation fee may be charged against an owner of record who was not shown to have had actual notice of the pooling hearing, and none may be charged against an owner the operator could not locate after diligent search and inquiry.

Checked July 31, 2026. Read at section 9-17-13. The phrase to hold on to is "in all events", because it fixes a floor an unleased Alabama owner cannot be argued below: whatever the well cost, whatever the risk fee, three sixteenths of the production allocated to the tract is royalty and reaches the owner free of cost. Set that against the other pooling regimes on this record. New York gives an owner who does nothing the LOWEST royalty in the unit. Alabama fixes the share in the statute at three sixteenths, or the actual landowner royalty where that is smaller, which is a real number rather than a reference to somebody else's bargain. The one hundred and fifty percent risk fee is the price of not participating, and it is at the modest end of the range. The two notice protections are the part most likely to matter to somebody reading this page because they inherited an interest: a risk fee cannot be imposed on a record owner unless it was SHOWN at the hearing, by a certified mail return receipt or other evidence the board finds sufficient, that they had actual notice, and it cannot be imposed at all on an owner the operator could not find after diligent search and inquiry. WHAT IS NOT READ: article 3 of the chapter, sections 9-17-80 to 9-17-88, which governs fieldwide and poolwide unitisation and is expressly carved out of subsection (c), and the drilling unit sizes in section 9-17-12.

Alabama Code § 9-17-33

Whenever payment is made for oil or gas production to an interest owner, meaning a person owning a royalty interest or a working interest in a well or unit, nine items must be included on or ascertainable from the cheque stub or an attachment unless they are otherwise provided regularly: the lease, property or well identification, the month and year of the sales included, the total barrels or MCF sold, the owner's final realizable price per unit, the total severance and other production taxes, the net value of total sales after taxes, the owner's interest expressed as a decimal fraction, the owner's share of total sales before tax deductions, and the owner's share after the production and severance taxes. Proceeds must be paid commencing no later than six months after the date of first sale and thereafter no later than sixty days after the end of the calendar month in which subsequent production is sold. A purchaser may remit annually where a year's accumulated monthly proceeds do not exceed one hundred dollars, and may hold accumulated proceeds of less than ten dollars until production or its responsibility ceases; but the owner may require annual payment below ten dollars and monthly payment above twenty five dollars, and before proceeds pass twenty five dollars the purchaser must give notice that monthly payment can be requested, that notice standing as notice to all heirs, successors, representatives and assigns. Where proceeds cannot be paid because title is not marketable, the purchaser must remit to the parties ultimately determined to be the legal owners the full amount plus interest at the Federal Reserve Discount Rate in effect on the first day of each month, running from the date the proceeds were due to those with marketable title. A purchaser who violates the section is liable for the unpaid proceeds plus interest at twelve percent a year from the date payment was due, and the circuit court of the county where the well is has jurisdiction.

Checked July 31, 2026. Read at section 9-17-33. Two features are unusual enough to be worth naming. The first is the notice duty before proceeds reach twenty five dollars: the purchaser must tell the owner that monthly payment can be requested, with directions for requesting it, and the statute says that notice counts as notice to all heirs, successors, representatives and assigns. That is a legislature trying to stop small interests from silently accumulating into a suspense account across generations, which is exactly how mineral interests go missing. The second is the interest split. Ordinary late payment carries twelve percent a year. Money held because TITLE IS NOT MARKETABLE carries only the Federal Reserve Discount Rate, which is far lower, and the section says the delay caused by unmarketable title does not affect payment to those whose title is marketable. So an heir whose title is muddled is paid eventually, with interest, but at a rate that gives the purchaser little reason to hurry. WHAT IS NOT READ: whether Alabama's unclaimed property chapter at title 35 chapter 12 takes suspended royalty proceeds and on what schedule, which is the question of where the money goes if the owner is never found. That chapter was enumerated for the dormancy negative on this page but its treatment of mineral proceeds was not read.

Alabama Code § 35-4-90

All conveyances of real property, deeds, mortgages, deeds of trust and instruments in the nature of mortgages to secure debts are inoperative and void as to purchasers for a valuable consideration, mortgagees and judgment creditors without notice, unless they have been recorded before the accrual of the right of those purchasers, mortgagees or judgment creditors. Conveyances required by law to be recorded are recorded in the office of the judge of probate, which in Alabama is the county recording office. All deeds, mortgages, deeds of trust, bills of sale, contracts and other documents purporting to convey any right, title, easement or interest in real estate, and all assignments of mortgages and deeds of trust, are admitted to record in the probate judge's office of any county when executed in accordance with law, and their filing for registration constitutes notice of their contents. A memorandum of a lease may be recorded in lieu of the lease itself if it is executed and acknowledged by both sides and names the parties, the term, any option to renew or extend, and the legal description, and as to what it contains a recorded memorandum has the same effect as recording the lease.

Checked July 31, 2026. Read at sections 35-4-90, 35-4-50, 35-4-51 and 35-4-51.1. The statute does not label itself, so read what it actually requires: the later claimant must be WITHOUT NOTICE, and the earlier instrument is saved if it was recorded BEFORE that claimant's right accrued. Both conditions are in one sentence, which is the shape this record has been calling race-notice in Colorado, Michigan, Montana, North Dakota, Alaska, California, New York, Wyoming and Utah, as against the notice-only shape in Kansas and Texas. Two practical points for a mineral searcher. The recording office is the office of the JUDGE OF PROBATE, not a county clerk or a county recorder, which matters when you are looking for the right building or the right online index. And the memorandum provision in section 35-4-51.1 means an oil and gas lease affecting the land may appear in the record only as a short memorandum, so a chain that shows no lease may still be subject to one whose terms are not of record. No Alabama opinion classifying the state as a notice or race-notice jurisdiction has been fetched, so no label is applied here, only the text. WHAT IS NOT READ: the affidavit provisions at sections 35-4-69 to 35-4-71, which govern what a recorded affidavit gives notice of, and any Alabama decision applying section 35-4-90.

Alabama Code § 40-20-2

The tax is levied upon the basis of the entire production in the state, including what is known as the royalty interest, on which production the amount of the tax is a lien, regardless of the place of sale, to whom sold, by whom used, or the fact that delivery may be made outside the state, and it accrues when the oil or gas is severed in its natural, unrefined condition. The privilege tax is levied upon the producers in the proportion of their ownership at the time of severance, and the person in charge of the production operations is authorized, empowered and required to deduct from any amount due to producers the proportionate amount of the tax before making payments to them. Where that person sells the production, the purchaser accounts for the tax; where that person uses or disposes of it and must pay other interest holders, the tax is deducted from what is due them; and a person in charge of production who fails to deduct and withhold is liable to the state for the full amount of taxes, interest and penalties. Natural gas lawfully injected into oil or gas pools, or injected for the purpose of lifting oil or gas, and gas lawfully vented or flared in connection with production, treatment or processing, are exempt, but injected gas that is sold or put into an underground storage facility is not.

Checked July 31, 2026. Read at sections 40-20-2 and 40-20-3. On the question this site asks of every state, Alabama answers it twice and in two different ways, which is worth separating. Section 40-20-2(b) settles the BASE: the tax is on the entire production including the royalty interest, so a royalty owner's barrels are inside the taxable amount rather than outside it. Section 40-20-3(a) settles the MECHANISM: the operator is required, not merely permitted, to deduct the proportionate share before paying the producers. Several states on this record leave the second half to the lease or to a withholding rule, and Alabama puts both in the statute. Note also section 40-20-2(c), which bars a county or municipality from levying any tax, fee, licence or charge on the production, treating, processing, ownership, sale, storage, purchase, marketing or transportation of oil or gas on which the state severance tax has been paid, with the local ad valorem power preserved and the bar kept in full force for offshore production. The rate schedule is on this page in the severance tax table rather than in this rule, because it has seven rows. WHAT IS NOT READ: whether the reduction in section 40-20-2(a)(5) means two percentage points or two percent of the rate, which the statute does not say and this record does not resolve; the allocation and distribution provisions at 40-20-8; and the additional taxes referred to at 40-20-13.