Idaho mineral rights

Idaho Code Title 47, Mines and Mining, chapter index

Nothing read for this record ends an Idaho mineral interest because nobody used it. There is no dormant mineral act and no marketable record title act, so there is no period of inactivity to survive, no statement of claim that would preserve anything, and no notice of lapse for anybody to serve. One section will look like a marketable title act to a search and is not. Idaho Code 55-817 is headed Duration of notice and provides that no public record of any mortgage or other lien on real property GIVEN PRIOR TO JULY 1, 1945 constitutes notice of its existence or contents to subsequent purchasers or encumbrancers for longer than ten years from the maturity date of the obligation, with the execution date substituted where the record does not disclose maturity. It reaches mortgages and liens, not conveyances; it reaches nothing executed in the last eighty years; and it says nothing about a mineral interest. What can still move an Idaho mineral interest is what can move one anywhere, a conveyance or a tax sale, together with adverse possession, which has its own rule on this page and its own twenty year clock.

Checked August 3, 2026. Established on 2026-08-03 by enumeration with controls and not by any search, because a relevance-ranked search can locate a provision and can never establish that one is absent. The instrument is the complete chapter index of TITLE 47, MINES AND MINING, and of TITLE 55, PROPERTY, each fetched whole and parsed into chapter number and chapter title pairs: eighteen chapters and thirty-two chapters, fifty in total. The words DORMANT, SEVER, LAPSE and MARKETABLE appear in none of the fifty. The controls are what make those zeros mean something: MINERAL returns 2 in Title 47, MINING 6, GEOTHERM 1, OIL 2, ABANDON 1, TAX 1 and RECORD 1; and in Title 55, PROPERTY returns 9, TRANSFER 5, RECORD 3 and UNCLAIMED 1. Title 47's chapters are the Idaho Geological Survey, Oil and Gas Wells, Location of Mining Claims, Mineral Rights in State Lands, Oil and Gas Leases on State and School Lands, Rights of Way and Easements for Development of Mines, Mining Tunnels, Proceeding by Lienholder upon Unpatented Mining Claim, License Tax for Privilege of Mining, Dredge Mining, Mineral Leases by Political Subdivisions, Mined Land Reclamation, Geothermal Resources, the Idaho Abandoned Mine Reclamation Act, Financial Assurance, and three repealed chapters. THE LIMIT, and it is the same limit every enumeration on this record carries: this is a chapter-title count over the two titles where such an act would be codified, so it cannot exclude a provision inside a chapter whose title does not disclose it, and no Idaho decision was read, so it says nothing about judge-made doctrine.

Idaho Code s. 47-701, Reservation of mineral deposits to state

Mineral deposits in lands belonging to the state are reserved to the state and reserved from sale, except upon a rental and royalty basis, and except when the surface estate is identified by the state board of land commissioners as having the potential highest and best use for development purposes such as residential, commercial or industrial purposes. Outside those exceptions the purchaser of state land acquires no right, title or interest in the deposits, and their right is subject to the reservation and to the state and persons authorised by it prospecting for, mining and removing the deposits, and occupying and using so much of the surface as may be required for all purposes reasonably incident to that. The terms mineral lands, mineral, mineral deposits, deposit and mineral right are defined for the chapter to mean all coal, oil, oil shale, gas, phosphate, sodium, asbestos, gold, silver, lead, zinc, copper, antimony, geothermal resources, salable minerals and all other minerals or deposits of whatsoever kind or character. An exchange of state land under section 58-138 is not a sale, and mineral transfers previously made in exchanges are ratified.

Checked August 3, 2026. Read at Idaho Code 47-701 on 2026-08-03. The structure is what to notice. Alaska, Washington and Hawaii each write a mineral reservation into every conveyance of state land by statute, with no exception for what the land is good for. Idaho's reservation has a LAND USE ESCAPE inside it: where the land board finds the surface's potential highest and best use is residential, commercial or industrial, the deposits are not reserved from sale at all, and the land can go as a single estate under 47-711(1). That is the same instinct Oregon's low-potential resource real property rule runs on, and Idaho got there by a different route, through the land board's judgment about the parcel rather than through a zoning and acreage line drawn in the statute. Note the reservation is of deposits in lands BELONGING TO THE STATE; nothing read here writes a reservation into a conveyance by anybody else, so an ordinary private severance in Idaho is a matter of the deed. WHAT IS NOT READ: section 47-708, which sets out the rights and liabilities of lessees toward the surface and which 47-711(2) incorporates, and how a land board development finding is actually made or published.

Idaho Code s. 47-711, Sale of state lands containing mineral deposits

Where the surface estate of state land has previously been sold with a reservation of the mineral estate, there is no lease of that mineral estate to anybody other than the surface owner, and the potential highest and best use of the land is for development purposes such as residential, commercial or industrial, the mineral estate may be sold for its appraised value under the state land sale provisions of chapter 3, title 58. A purchaser of the mineral estate who is not the owner of the surface takes the same rights and liabilities toward the surface estate that section 47-708 gives a state mineral lessee. Separately, where state land is identified as having that development potential in the first place, the land may be sold as a single estate rather than split, and in the sale of the surface of all other state land the minerals are reserved.

Checked August 3, 2026. Read at Idaho Code 47-711 on 2026-08-03. Set this beside Oregon's ORS 273.787, read the day before, because they answer the same question and disagree on both halves of it. Oregon says the Department of State Lands SHALL release and transfer the reserved rights within sixty days of a completed application, MAY NOT require an appraisal, may not make the owner pay for one it requests, and may not charge more than a hundred and fifty dollars. Idaho says the mineral estate MAY BE SOLD for its APPRAISED VALUE. Duty against discretion, and free against priced. Oregon draws its eligibility line by zoning and lot size; Idaho draws it by the land board's view of highest and best use, which is a judgment rather than a measurement, and the third condition, that no third party holds a lease, is a real gate: a leased reserved estate is not available at any price. Florida and Hawaii also allow a state reservation to be released and both are discretionary. WHAT IS NOT READ: chapter 3 of title 58 and how a sale is actually initiated, whether the surface owner has any preference over other bidders, and how the appraisal is conducted.

Idaho Code s. 47-1602, Geothermal resources defined

Geothermal resources means the natural heat energy of the earth, the energy in whatever form which may be found in any position and at any depth below the surface present in, resulting from, created by, or which may be extracted from that natural heat, and all minerals in solution or other products obtained from the material medium of any geothermal resource. The legislature then answers the classification question by refusing both of the usual boxes: geothermal resources are found and declared to be sui generis, being neither a mineral resource nor a water resource, while also being declared closely related to and possibly affecting and affected by water resources in many instances. And the consequence is written in one sentence that runs in both directions at once: no right to seek, obtain or use geothermal resources has passed or shall pass with any existing or future lease of state or school lands, including but not limited to mineral leases and leases issued under chapter 8 of title 47.

Checked August 3, 2026. Read at Idaho Code 47-1602 on 2026-08-03, added 1972 ch. 182. Three states on this record now answer who owns geothermal and no two agree. Hawaii's HRS 182-1 makes all geothermal resources a mineral by definition, and 182-2 reserves the minerals under state lands and reserved lands to the State. Oregon's ORS 522.035 puts ownership in the owner of the surface property unless the rights were otherwise reserved or conveyed. Idaho declares it neither. Be exact about what Idaho's declaration decides and what it does not. It is about classification, not about ownership, and 47-701(1) still names geothermal resources in the list of deposits reserved to the state in state lands, so on state land the state has it either way. What 47-1602 settles is that a LEASE of the minerals does not reach it, retrospectively and prospectively in the same clause. WHAT IS NOT READ: who owns geothermal under private Idaho land, and whether a private mineral reservation or conveyance carries it. Nothing read answers that, and the sui generis declaration is a reason to think a court would not simply assume either way.

Idaho Code s. 47-334, Use of surface land by owner or operator

An owner or operator may enter surface land under which it holds oil and gas rights and use the surface to the extent reasonably necessary to conduct operations, and consistent with allowing the surface landowner the greatest possible use of their property to the extent that use does not interfere with operations. Except as reasonably necessary the operator must mitigate the effects of access, minimise interference, and compensate the landowner for unreasonable loss of crops, unreasonable loss of value to existing improvements, and unreasonable permanent damage to the land. The operator is not required to obtain location or spacing exceptions, or to use directional or horizontal drilling that is not technologically feasible, economically practicable or reasonably available. Either side may request non binding mediation on the amount of damages, the mediator is mutually selected, the cost is shared equally, and mediation does not delay operations. A surface use bond of at least six thousand dollars per well site must be furnished to the department before the drilling permit is approved, payable to the department for the landowner's benefit, and released only on a surface use agreement, final judicial resolution with damages paid, or plugging and abandonment.

Checked August 3, 2026. Read at Idaho Code 47-334 on 2026-08-03, added 2017 ch. 271 s. 27 and amended 2023 ch. 283 s. 14. Two limits matter more than the protections and belong in the same breath as them. THE CONTRACT WINS: subsection (6)(b) provides that a lease, surface use agreement or other written contract shall control both the use of the surface and the compensation for damage, and subsection (5) disapplies the reasonable use standard where it conflicts with a contractual provision. So this is a default regime for a landowner who has signed nothing, and it is worth knowing before signing. THE BOND ALSO GOES: subsection (8)(a) disapplies the surface use bond entirely where the landowner is a party or successor to a lease of the underlying oil and gas, to a surface use agreement, or to any contract, waiver or release about the operator's use of the surface. And the definition excludes tenants in terms: surface landowner does not include the landowner's lessee, renter, tenant or other contractually related person, which is the opposite of California, where operator duties are keyed to how close people are to the well rather than to who holds title and do reach tenants. The word UNREASONABLE qualifies all three heads of compensation, so ordinary damage from operations conducted reasonably is not compensable under this section. WHAT IS NOT READ: any Idaho decision on what greatest possible use requires, and the department's rules on the bond form.

Idaho Code s. 47-901, Right of way for mining purposes

The owner, locator or occupant of a mining claim, whether patented under the laws of the United States or held by location or possession, may have and acquire a right of way for ingress and egress, when necessary in working the claim, over and across the lands or mining claims of others, whether patented or otherwise. A companion section extends it to railroads, ditches and tunnels. If the right of way cannot be acquired by agreement with the owner or claimant of the land, the miner commences an action in the district court for the county where the right of way or part of it is situated, by verified complaint describing the character and extent of the right sought, their own mine or claim, and the land to be affected, with the name of its occupant or owner, and may plead any tender of compensation made. Commissioners are appointed, or the court tries it if they are not; they take an oath, view the land, and report, and the report may be set aside. On payment or tender of the sum assessed as damages the miner is entitled to the right of way prayed for and may immediately occupy it, erect works and structures on it, and make excavations in it. There is an appeal from the commissioners' award on bond.

Checked August 3, 2026. Read at Idaho Code 47-901, 47-903 and 47-908 on 2026-08-03, with the procedure at 47-902 to 47-909. The chapter is territorial law of 1876 and it is still in the code. This is PRIVATE CONDEMNATION: an ordinary claimant, not a public body and not a utility, files in district court and takes a right of way over a neighbour's land on payment of assessed damages. Hawaii is the nearest thing on this record and it is a different device, because HRS 182-12 has the STATE acquiring rights of way for mining transportation by eminent domain and then assigning, leasing or transferring them to the person mining. Idaho puts the action in the private claimant's own hands. Be exact about the scope: every operative word is MINING CLAIM, so this is the mining claim world rather than severed oil and gas, and nothing read extends it. Also worth noticing on the other side of the ledger, because it explains what the chapter is for: Idaho has no statute read here giving a surface owner a right to refuse. WHAT IS NOT READ: whether the chapter is used, any Idaho decision on it, and how commissioners value a right of way.

Idaho Code s. 47-320, Integration of tracts

Where two or more separately owned tracts are in a spacing unit, or there are separately owned interests in one, the interested persons may integrate voluntarily, and in the absence of voluntary integration the department shall order integration on the application of any owner. Every integration order must provide three options. An owner electing to participate as a working interest owner pays their proportionate share of actual costs and takes their share of production. An owner who refuses to share the risk but wants a working interest is a nonconsenting working interest owner, and the operator may recover a risk penalty of up to three hundred per cent of that owner's share of drilling and operating costs before the owner starts receiving production. And an owner who makes no election at all within the election period receives a base entitlement, which is a minimum one eighth royalty of any gas, oil or natural gas liquids produced, royalty payments complying with section 47-331, and the highest bonus payment per acre that the operator paid to any other owner in the spacing unit before the integration application was filed. The operator must also avoid, to the maximum extent possible, any use of the surface lands of owners integrated on that basis. An integration order runs five years and as long thereafter as operations continue, and does not inhibit claims for damage to person, property or water rights.

Checked August 3, 2026. Read at Idaho Code 47-320 on 2026-08-03, with spacing at 47-317. The quoted clause is a most favoured nation term for the owner who never signed anything: they receive the best per acre bonus anybody in their unit negotiated. Nothing else on this record gives a non electing owner the benefit of a price somebody else bargained for. Compare what other states give the same person: New York makes them an integrated royalty owner at the lowest royalty in the unit with no costs, Alabama guarantees three sixteenths free of every cost, North Dakota a cost free royalty. Idaho gives one eighth plus the bonus plus a surface avoidance duty. The three hundred per cent risk penalty is shared with Florida, against Washington's one hundred and fifty. Two further features are worth knowing. THE THRESHOLD: an application must be supported by an affidavit that at least sixty seven per cent of the mineral interest acres in the unit support it by leasing or participating, and an operator below that may still apply with at least fifty five per cent, at least one hundred and twenty days of diligent good faith negotiation, and lease terms to the uncommitted no less favourable than 47-331(2). THE CONTACT DUTY: a resume of efforts documenting good faith efforts on at least two separate occasions over a period of not less than sixty days, at least one by certified mail to the last known address, with newspaper publication where an owner is unknown or cannot be found, and an owner who asks for no further contact relieves the applicant. The department deems a joint operating agreement just and reasonable if it is based on a standard industry form such as those supplied by the American association of professional landmen and the operator shows any amendments are not prejudicial, which is a statute naming a trade association's form as the benchmark of fairness. WHAT IS NOT READ: the commission's rules, and whether any Idaho integration order has ever been made.

Idaho Code s. 47-331, Obligation to pay royalties as essence of contract

The obligation arising under an oil and gas lease to pay royalties, to deliver oil and gas to an end purchaser to the royalty owner's credit, or to pay a portion of the sale proceeds, is of the essence in the lease contract. Unless otherwise agreed by the parties, a royalty of no less than twelve and one half per cent of the oil and gas or natural gas plant liquids produced and saved must be paid, in legal tender unless written instructions for payment in kind have been given, and royalty is due on all production sold from the leased premises except what is consumed for the direct operation of the producing wells and what is lost through no fault of the lessee. If the operator fails to pay within one hundred and twenty days after first production is marketed, or within sixty days for oil and ninety days for gas thereafter, the unpaid royalties bear interest at the maximum rate authorised by statute from the date due until paid; where the aggregate due for a twelve month period is under a hundred dollars the operator may remit annually without interest. A royalty owner may file a complaint with the commission or bring an action in the district court, and the prevailing party in any proceeding is entitled to court costs and reasonable attorney's fees. The section does not apply where the owner has elected to take production in kind, or where there is a dispute about title to the minerals or entitlement to royalties whose outcome would affect distribution.

Checked August 3, 2026. Read at Idaho Code 47-331 on 2026-08-03, added 2017 ch. 271 s. 24 and amended 2023. THE THREE WORDS THAT DECIDE ITS VALUE ARE UNLESS OTHERWISE AGREED. North Carolina is the other state on this record with a twelve and a half per cent figure and it does a different job: there it is a FLOOR that pre and post production costs may not reach, and it cannot be contracted away. Idaho's is a DEFAULT, a gap filler for a lease that is silent, and a lease providing for less displaces it. A reader who knows one state and assumes the other has the wrong answer, which is why both are named here. What is not a default is the rest of the section: the deadlines, the interest, the choice between the commission and the district court, and the fee shifting all apply to the obligation as it exists. Fee shifting runs both ways, so a royalty owner who loses can be ordered to pay. The exception in subsection (5) for a title or entitlement dispute is wide and is the answer an operator will reach for first: while ownership is genuinely contested the clock and the interest do not run. WHAT IS NOT READ: the interest rate at 28-22-104(1), and whether the commission has ever heard a royalty complaint.

Idaho Code s. 47-332, Reports to royalty owners

Each royalty payment must be accompanied by an oil and gas royalty check stub that includes eleven things: lease or well identification; the month and year of sales included in the payment; total volumes of oil, condensate, natural gas liquids or other liquids sold in barrels or gallons and gas in MCF; price per barrel, gallon or MCF including British thermal unit adjustment of gas sold; severance taxes attributable to the interest; net value of total sales after deduction of severance taxes; the owner's interest in the well expressed as a decimal to eight places; the owner's share of the total value of sales before any deductions; the owner's share of the sales value less their share of severance taxes; an itemised list of any other deductions; and an address at which further information may be obtained and questions answered, with a duty to answer by certified mail within thirty days if the request came by certified mail. All revenue decimals must be calculated to at least eight decimal places and all volumes measured by certified and proved meters. And the lessee must maintain for five years, and make available to the lessor on request, copies of all documents, records or reports confirming gross production, disposition and market value, including gas meter readings, pipeline receipts, gas line receipts and other checks or memoranda, and any other records the lessor may require to verify them.

Checked August 3, 2026. Read at Idaho Code 47-332 on 2026-08-03, added 2017 ch. 271 s. 25. The itemised deductions line and the five year retention duty are what turn this from a disclosure rule into an audit right, because between them a royalty owner can see what was taken out and then demand the documents that show whether it should have been. Two other states on this record legislate about the paper that comes with a royalty and neither does this. Oregon's ORS 324.510 dictates the exact eighteen words that must be stamped or written on every settlement sheet, and its subject is the severance tax deduction and the payee's authorisation of it, not the owner's ability to check the arithmetic. North Carolina's G.S. 105-187.83 points the duty the other way and makes the ROYALTY OWNER keep the settlement sheets and hand them to the Secretary of Revenue on request. Idaho is the only one of the three read here that tells the operator what data the owner is entitled to see. Note that section 47-333 supplies the enforcement: on written demand for an accounting, no more often than once every twenty four months, and ninety days of failure, the owner may sue in the district court of the county where the lands are, with attorney's fees to the prevailing party, and those remedies are expressly not exclusive. WHAT IS NOT READ: whether any of this has been litigated.

Idaho Code s. 14-5-201, When property presumed abandoned

Idaho enacted a Revised Unclaimed Property Act in 2024 and it carries the uniform act's mineral definitions in full. Mineral means gas, oil, coal, oil shale, other gaseous liquid or solid hydrocarbon, cement material, sand and gravel, road material, building stone, chemical raw material, gemstone, fissionable and nonfissionable ores, colloidal and other clay, steam and other geothermal resources, and any other substance defined as a mineral by another law of the state. Mineral proceeds means an amount payable for extraction, production or sale of minerals, expressly including amounts payable for the acquisition and retention of a mineral lease such as a bonus, royalty, compensatory royalty, shut in royalty, minimum royalty and delay rental; for extraction, production or sale, such as a net revenue interest, royalty, overriding royalty, extraction payment and production payment; and under an agreement or option including a joint operating agreement, unit agreement, pooling agreement and farm out agreement. And then the schedule of abandonment periods never uses either term. Suspended Idaho mineral money falls to the catch all, which presumes property abandoned at the earlier of five years after the owner first has a right to demand it or the obligation to pay or distribute it arises.

Checked August 3, 2026. Established on 2026-08-03 by enumeration and not by any search. The instrument is Part 2 of Idaho Code title 14 chapter 5, PRESUMPTION OF ABANDONMENT, enumerated to section level from the part index: twelve sections, 14-5-201 through 14-5-212, being property generally, tax deferred retirement accounts, other tax deferred accounts, custodial accounts for minors, contents of safe deposit boxes, stored value cards, securities, related property, indication of apparent owner interest, knowledge of death of an insured or annuitant, deposit accounts for insurance or annuity proceeds, and holding period by type of liability. NONE OF THE TWELVE IS ABOUT MINERALS. Section 14-5-201(1) was then read in full: fourteen lettered paragraphs covering travellers cheques at fifteen years, money orders at seven, bonds deposits retail credits and insurance at five, dissolution distributions, court held property, government held property, wages and utility deposits at one, prepaid funeral funds, and terminated retirement plan funds, ending in the quoted catch all. So Idaho took the uniform act's mineral DEFINITIONS and did not take its mineral proceeds abandonment provision. The five years is what most mineral proceeds provisions specify anyway; what is missing is what usually travels with them, an aggregation rule for proceeds held by the same holder for the same owner, and any treatment of the underlying mineral INTEREST as distinct from the money. Two general rules do bite and the second is the one to remember for an inherited interest: where the holder has imposed an inactivity charge and the period would exceed five years, it becomes five years from the owner's last indication of interest; and a deceased owner cannot indicate interest in their own property, so where the period would exceed two years it becomes two years from the last indication of interest. THE LIMIT: this is a section-title enumeration of the Part that would contain such a provision plus a full read of the schedule section, and no other chapter of the Idaho Code was searched for one.

Idaho Code s. 55-812, Unrecorded conveyance void against subsequent purchasers

Every conveyance of real property other than a lease for a term not exceeding one year is void as against any subsequent purchaser or mortgagee of the same property, or any part of it, in good faith and for a valuable consideration, whose conveyance is first duly recorded. Both limbs are in the one sentence: the later claimant must be in good faith and must have given value, and must also have got to the recorder first. The section is territorial law of 1863 and has not been amended since the 1932 code. What may be recorded is set out separately and includes, alongside conveyances and judgments, United States patents and notices of location, which is where the paper trail of an Idaho mining claim begins in the county records.

Checked August 3, 2026. Read at Idaho Code 55-812 on 2026-08-03, with 55-801 to 55-804 on what may be recorded. Both limbs are required, which is the shape this record has been calling race-notice in Colorado, Michigan, Montana, North Dakota, Alaska, California, New York, Wyoming, Utah, Minnesota, Hawaii and Oregon, as against the notice-only shape in Kansas and Texas. No Idaho opinion classifying the state was fetched, so no label is applied here, only the text. Set it against North Carolina, which is on this record as pure race, where the first to register wins and notice does not come into it at all. The one year lease exclusion matters more for minerals than it looks: a short oil and gas lease is outside the section, though in practice an oil and gas lease with a habendum clause is not a lease for a term not exceeding one year. WHAT IS NOT READ: any Idaho decision on what good faith requires, and in particular whether possession or inquiry notice defeats it.

Idaho Code s. 55-811, Record as notice

Every conveyance of real property acknowledged or proved, and certified, and recorded as prescribed by law, is constructive notice of its contents to subsequent purchasers and mortgagees from the time it is filed with the recorder for record. The second paragraph of the same section does something a searcher needs to know about and would not guess. Where a recorded conveyance was executed by somebody who only afterwards acquired an interest in the property, by a later conveyance that is itself constructive notice, the earlier conveyance becomes constructive notice of its contents to subsequent purchasers and mortgagees from the time that later conveyance is filed. So a grant made too early is not simply void as against the world: it springs into notice when the grantor's own title arrives on the record.

Checked August 3, 2026. Read at Idaho Code 55-811 on 2026-08-03. The second paragraph was added by 1935 ch. 107 and amended in 1941, and it is after-acquired title expressed through the recording system rather than through estoppel. It matters for minerals more than for most interests because of how severances happen: a mineral deed given by somebody whose own title was defective, or who held under an unrecorded chain, is exactly the instrument this paragraph rescues, and it rescues it against later purchasers rather than only between the parties. For a searcher the practical consequence is that a mineral conveyance recorded BEFORE the grantor appears in the chain is not noise to be skipped over. WHAT IS NOT READ: any Idaho decision applying the second paragraph, and how title examiners in Idaho handle a mineral deed recorded ahead of its grantor's own deed.

Idaho Code s. 5-210, Oral claim, possession defined, payment of taxes

No action to recover real property or its possession can be maintained unless the plaintiff or an ancestor, predecessor or grantor was seized or possessed within twenty years before the action was commenced, and that section says expressly that it includes possessory rights to lands and mining claims. For a claim not founded on a written instrument, judgment or decree, land is deemed possessed and occupied only where it has been protected by a substantial enclosure or usually cultivated or improved; in no case is adverse possession established unless the land has been occupied and claimed continuously for twenty years and the claimant and their predecessors and grantors have paid all the taxes, state, county and municipal, levied and assessed on it; and the claimant must prove the enclosure or cultivation by clear and convincing evidence. And there is a way out that needs no litigation at all: adverse possession is not established under any section of the code if a written instrument has been recorded in the county real estate records declaring that it was not the intent of a party to that instrument, by permitting possession or occupation of real property, to thereby define property boundaries or ownership.

Checked August 3, 2026. Read at Idaho Code 5-203 and 5-210 on 2026-08-03. The recordable declaration was added by 2001 ch. 290 s. 2 and nothing else on this record lets a landowner switch the doctrine off by filing a piece of paper. The twenty year period in both sections came from 2006 ch. 158, which raised it from five years, so an Idaho adverse possession claim maturing today rests on occupation beginning in 2006 at the earliest. The tax payment requirement is doing real work and is worth reading beside the states where a severed mineral interest carries its own tax bill: paying all the taxes on the land is a condition of the claim, which in a state where minerals were separately assessed would be a serious obstacle to possessing them. Section 5-203 naming MINING CLAIMS expressly is unusual in a limitation statute and is the only place in either section that minerals appear. WHAT IS NOT READ, and the page says so: how any of this applies across a severance. Neither section addresses a severed mineral estate, no Idaho decision was fetched, and the ordinary proposition that possession of the surface is not possession of the minerals once they are severed has not been verified against any Idaho authority. North Carolina is the state on this record where a statute answers the question directly, and Idaho has no equivalent.