Indiana mineral rights

Ind. Code § 32-23-10-2

An Indiana interest in coal, oil and gas, and other minerals that is unused for twenty years is extinguished, and ownership reverts to the owner of the interest out of which it was carved, unless a statement of claim is filed in accordance with the chapter. The reversion is expressed as automatic: the statute does not require the person who benefits to serve notice, record an affidavit or file anything first.

Checked July 31, 2026. Read at IC 32-23-10-2 in the 2025 Indiana Code on the General Assembly's own site. The Supreme Court of the United States upheld the predecessor of this chapter against a due process challenge in Texaco, Inc. v. Short, 454 U.S. 516 (1982), which is on the federal record here and set out on the dormancy page; note that the Court described the Act as reverting a lapsed interest to the current surface owner, while the text quoted below reverts it to the owner of the interest out of which it was carved, and whether that is a substantive change or a recodification is not established on this record. Two features distinguish this from every other lapse state on this record and both are in the words. First, it is self-executing. Ohio requires the surface owner to serve notice and record an affidavit and gives the holder sixty days; North Dakota requires newspaper publication and gives sixty days; Michigan requires nothing of the surface owner but still frames the vesting as of the date of abandonment. Indiana states the extinguishment and the reversion as consequences of the twenty years passing. Second, the destination is different: every other state on this record sends the interest to the surface owner, and Indiana sends it to "the owner of the interest out of which" it was carved, which is the grantor's estate rather than the surface as such and need not be the same person. The section carries a pre-2002 recodification citation to 32-5-11-1 and was added by P.L.2-2002. WHAT IS NOT READ: Texaco, Inc. v. Short, 454 U.S. 516, the Supreme Court decision on this statute's predecessor, which is the reason this state was chosen and which is fetchable at official tier from tile.loc.gov. Nothing here says anything about what that case decided.

Ind. Code § 32-23-10-3

An Indiana mineral interest is considered used when minerals are produced under it, when operations are conducted on it for injection, withdrawal, storage or disposal of water, gas or other fluids, when rentals or royalties are paid by the owner to delay or enjoy the rights, when any of those happens on a tract the interest may be unitized or pooled with, when in the case of coal or other solid minerals there is production from a common vein or seam by the owners, or when taxes are paid on the interest by its owner. A use authorised by the instrument creating the interest continues in force all rights the instrument granted.

Checked July 31, 2026. Read at IC 32-23-10-3. The saving list is the part of any dormant mineral act that decides how many interests actually lapse, and Indiana's last item is the one worth pulling out: simply paying the property tax assessed on the interest counts as using it. That is a far lower bar than production or a recorded instrument, and it means an owner who has done nothing but pay a small annual bill has kept the interest alive without ever knowing this chapter existed. The unitisation item matters for the same reason, because a use on a pooled tract counts for the interest itself. Subsection (b) is the other quiet one: a use under or authorised by the instrument that created the interest continues in force all rights granted by that instrument. WHAT IS NOT READ: sections 4, 5 and 6, which carry the statement of claim, the consequences of failing to file one, and the notice and lapse provisions, all of which were seen in the chapter's own section list and not read.

Ind. Code § 32-23-10-1

For the Indiana dormant mineral chapter, a mineral interest means the interest created by an instrument that transfers an interest of any kind in coal, oil and gas, and other minerals, whether by grant, by assignment, by reservation or otherwise. The definition turns on the instrument having created the interest rather than on the form the transaction took.

Checked July 31, 2026. Read at IC 32-23-10-1. The breadth is the point and it runs in two directions. The substances are coal, oil and gas, and other minerals, so unlike Michigan's act, which reaches oil and gas only, and unlike Ohio's, which excepts coal, Indiana's chapter covers the lot. And the routes are grant, assignment, reservation "or otherwise", so a reservation in a deed of the surface is caught as squarely as an outright conveyance of the minerals. The definition governs this chapter and is not a general statement of Indiana property law. What a severed Indiana mineral estate is outside this chapter has NOT been read.

Ind. Code § 32-21-4-1

An Indiana conveyance or mortgage must be recorded in the recorder's office in the county where the land is located, and takes priority according to the time of its recording. A conveyance or mortgage is fraudulent and void as against a subsequent purchaser, lessee or mortgagee in good faith and for valuable consideration whose own deed, mortgage or lease is recorded first. Conveyance is defined to include a lease or memorandum of lease for a term exceeding three years.

Checked July 31, 2026. Read at IC 32-21-4-1(b) and (c) in the 2025 Indiana Code. This is a tenth distinct formulation across the states on this record and it combines two things other states keep apart: it states a general priority rule by time of recording, and then states the fraudulent-and-void consequence in the terms Ohio and Pennsylvania use, qualified by good faith and value in the terms Michigan, North Dakota and Montana use. The definition in subsection (a) is worth noting for a mineral owner because it expressly brings in a lease, or a memorandum of lease, for a term exceeding three years, which is the ordinary shape of an oil and gas lease. No Indiana opinion classifying the state as notice or race-notice has been fetched, so no label is applied here. Subsection (d), which deals with instruments recorded despite defects in acknowledgment or technical form, was seen and not read.

Ind. Code § 14-34-4-7(a)(5)

The Indiana director may not approve a surface coal mining permit unless the applicant affirmatively demonstrates a list of things, one of which applies where the private mineral estate has been severed from the private surface estate. In that case the applicant must submit either the written consent of the surface owner to extraction of coal by surface mining methods, or a conveyance expressly granting or reserving the right to extract coal by those methods. Where the conveyance does not expressly grant that right, the statute sends the surface-subsurface relationship back to Indiana law to be determined.

Checked July 31, 2026. Read at IC 14-34-4-7(a)(5), inside the section governing approval of a surface coal mining permit application, where the applicant carries the burden of establishing compliance. The conflict it addresses is one every coal state has had to resolve somehow: an old severance deed written before anyone contemplated removing the surface to reach the seam, and an operator who now proposes to do exactly that. Indiana resolves it through the permit rather than through the deed. It refuses the permit unless the applicant produces either the surface owner's written consent or a conveyance expressly granting the surface mining right, and where the conveyance is silent it does not decide the question but remits it to Indiana law. The effect is to place the burden on the party who wants to mine without settling the underlying property question at all. Two limits: this is about COAL extracted by surface mining methods and this record has read nothing applying it to oil and gas, and it operates as a condition of a permit rather than as a rule of property. What Indiana law says when the conveyance is silent has NOT been read.

Ind. Code § 6-8-1-8

Indiana taxes petroleum at the greater of one percent of value or a per unit floor, on producers and owners alike, and defines owner to include royalty, overriding royalty and mineral rights owners.

Checked July 31, 2026. Read at IC 6-8-1-8, with the definition of owner at IC 6-8-1-7 and the lien at IC 6-8-1-9. The rate structure is a shape no other state on this record uses: it is not a percentage of value and it is not a per unit charge, it is whichever of the two produces the larger tax, so the per unit figures act as a floor under the percentage when prices are low. That the tax reaches the royalty interest is not an inference here, it is the definition: owner means a person receiving or entitled to receive a proportionate share of petroleum or of the proceeds, and the section says so "without limitation of the foregoing" before naming royalties, excess royalty, overriding royalty, mineral rights and working interest. Two exceptions are in the rate section and are read: gas from a well used to pump or treat that same well, and gas piped to a landowner's private buildings for the landowner's own use. The chapter dates from Acts 1947, c.278 and was amended by P.L.109-1988.