North Dakota mineral rights

N.D.C.C. § 38-18.1-02

A North Dakota mineral interest unused for the twenty years immediately preceding the first publication of the statutory notice is deemed abandoned unless a statement of claim has been recorded, and title to the abandoned interest vests in the owner of the surface estate on the date of abandonment.

Checked July 30, 2026. Read in the chapter PDF the North Dakota Legislative Branch publishes for chapter 38-18.1, which is titled Termination of Mineral Interest. Two provisions at the end of the chapter change how this rule should be read and are recorded here rather than as separate rules. Section 38-18.1-07 prohibits waiver of the chapter at any time before the twenty year period expires, so a mineral owner cannot contract out of it in advance. Section 38-18.1-08 states the chapter does not apply to a mineral interest owned by a governmental body or agency and that the chapter is both prospective and retrospective in its application, which means periods of non use completed before the chapter was enacted are not excluded. The surface owner who succeeds to an interest may record a statement of succession in interest.

N.D.C.C. § 38-18.1-03(1)(d)

A North Dakota mineral interest is deemed used when minerals are produced under it, when operations for injection, withdrawal, storage or disposal are conducted, when solid minerals are produced from a common vein or seam by the owners, when the interest is subject to a recorded lease, mortgage, assignment or conveyance, when it is subject to a recorded pooling or unitization order or agreement, or when a proper statement of claim is recorded.

Checked July 30, 2026. Read at section 38-18.1-03(1), which lists the six uses at subdivisions (a) to (f). The quoted one is chosen because it is the one most mineral owners will actually be able to rely on: an interest that has been leased, mortgaged, assigned or conveyed, and the instrument recorded with the county recorder, has been used for the purposes of this chapter even though nothing was ever drilled. Note the recording requirement attaches to the pooling limb too: an order or agreement to pool or unitize counts only if it is recorded in the county where the interest is located.

N.D.C.C. § 38-18.1-03(2)

Paying royalties, bonus or any other money into an interest-bearing, trust or escrow account on behalf of a person who cannot be located does not satisfy the use requirement, so a North Dakota interest is not preserved by money accumulating for its owner. An account of that kind that has existed for three years is deemed abandoned property.

Checked July 30, 2026. Read at section 38-18.1-03(2). This is the statutory equivalent of the point the Supreme Court of Ohio had to decide as case law, that money moving under a lease is not the same as using the interest, and North Dakota answers it in the statute instead. The same subsection provides that interest on such an account must be credited to the account and may not be used for any other purpose, that an account of that kind in existence for three years is deemed abandoned property and must be treated as abandoned property under chapter 47-30.2, and that a lease given by a trustee remains valid. Chapter 47-30.2 was not read.

N.D.C.C. § 38-18.1-05

A North Dakota statement of claim must normally be recorded by the mineral owner before the end of the twenty year period, naming the owner and address, the land and the type of interest. Failure to do so is not fatal if, within sixty days after the first publication of notice, the record owner records either a statement of claim or documentation that a qualifying use occurred during the twenty years.

Checked July 30, 2026. Read at sections 38-18.1-04 and 38-18.1-05. The ordering is the practical difference from Ohio: North Dakota's saving document is due before the clock runs out, and the sixty day window is a rescue after publication rather than the primary route. Section 38-18.1-05(2) provides a separate route for a person who is not the record owner, who may within the same sixty days file an affidavit or declaration under oath explaining the factual and legal basis for asserting title, accompanied by supporting documentation or an explanation why it is unavailable. A joint tenant, but not a tenant in common, may record a claim on behalf of the others. A statement of claim filed after July 31, 2009 by someone other than the record owner is not effective unless it references the name of the record owner under whom that person claims.

N.D.C.C. § 38-18.1-06(6)

A North Dakota surface owner intending to take a lapsed mineral interest must publish notice once a week for three weeks in the official county newspaper, and must also mail a copy to the mineral owner within ten days of the last publication if the address is of record or can be determined on reasonable inquiry. Reasonable inquiry is defined by the statute and has four specified searches.

Checked July 30, 2026. Read at section 38-18.1-06. The four searches at subsection 6 are the county recorder's records for any of the statutory uses, the clerk of court's records for judgments, liens or probate records identifying the owner, the social security death index for the last known residence of a deceased owner, and one or more public internet databases to locate the owner or any known heirs, with an express exemption from having to use private fee databases. This level of statutory detail about the diligence owed to an absent mineral owner has no counterpart in any other state on this record. The notice must name the record owner of the mineral interest, describe the land, and name the surface owners giving notice, and a copy plus an affidavit of service must be recorded, which is prima facie evidence in any legal proceeding that notice was given.

N.D.C.C. § 38-18.1-06.1(3)

After completing the notice procedure a North Dakota surface owner may bring a quiet title action and obtain judgment perfecting title to the mineral interest, on evidence that every procedure was followed and a reasonable inquiry made. Such a judgment is conclusive except for fraud, misrepresentation or other misconduct, and a lessee who leased from that surface owner is deemed a bona fide purchaser whose lease survives if the judgment is later vacated.

Checked July 30, 2026. Read at section 38-18.1-06.1, which the chapter heads Perfecting title in surface owner. The action is brought in the district court of the county where the minerals are located in the same manner as a quiet title action under chapter 32-17, which was not read. Subsection 4 provides that a lessee taking from a surface owner who holds such a judgment is deemed a bona fide purchaser, its lease remains effective if the judgment is later vacated, and it is not liable to any third party for bonus, royalties or other proceeds paid to the surface owner before that. Subsection 5 lets the surface owner keep those proceeds too, absent fraud or misrepresentation. The combined effect is worth stating plainly to a mineral owner: once this judgment is entered and the minerals leased, unwinding it does not necessarily return the money.

N.D.C.C. § 38-18.1-01

North Dakota defines a mineral interest for the purposes of its termination chapter as any interest in oil, gas, coal, clay, gravel, uranium and all other minerals of any kind and nature, however the interest was created, that is owned by a person other than the owner of the surface estate.

Checked July 30, 2026. Read at section 38-18.1-01. Two features matter. The definition is by inclusion rather than exhaustive enumeration, and it names coal among the minerals reached, which is the opposite of Ohio, where coal is expressly exempt from the equivalent machinery. And the definition is framed by who holds the interest rather than by its technical form: what makes it a mineral interest for this chapter is that somebody other than the surface owner owns it. As with the equivalent Ohio definition, this governs the chapter it sits in rather than standing as a general definition of a severed estate in North Dakota law, and no North Dakota authority on the character of a severed mineral estate outside this chapter has been fetched.

N.D.C.C. § 57-51-02.1

For the purposes the section names, North Dakota's gross production tax is a real property tax on oil-producing and gas-producing mineral estates and interests, which is a statutory characterisation of the severed producing interest as real property rather than as a licence or a contract right.

Checked July 30, 2026. Read at section 57-51-02.1 in the Century Code chapter PDF for chapter 57-51. The characterisation is expressly made for the purposes of interpreting a 1987 session law relating to federal land bank taxation and to the taxation of other governmental entities whose immunity has been waived, so it is recorded here with that limit visible rather than as a general statement of North Dakota property law. It is included because it is the only statutory statement found in this pass on what kind of property a producing severed interest is, and because it explains why the production tax reaches the royalty interest rather than only the operator.

N.D.C.C. § 47-19-41

An unrecorded North Dakota conveyance of real estate is void as against a subsequent purchaser in good faith and for valuable consideration whose conveyance is first recorded, and as against an attachment or judgment against the owner of record entered before the conveyance is recorded. That the first recorded conveyance is a quitclaim deed does not by itself affect the later purchaser's good faith.

Checked July 30, 2026. Read at section 47-19-41 in the Century Code chapter PDF for chapter 47-19. This is a fifth distinct formulation across the states on this record and it combines both elements: good faith and value, and first recording. Colorado's statute calls itself a race-notice statute in terms; Texas turns on notice and valuable consideration; Oklahoma says simply that an unrecorded instrument is not valid against third persons; Ohio calls it fraudulent as against a later bona fide purchaser without knowledge. The section also states that it is itself notice to all who claim under unrecorded instruments that prior recording of later instruments may nullify their title, and that the record of an instrument is valid as the legal record whether or not the instrument was entitled to be recorded. No North Dakota opinion classifying the state has been fetched, so no label is applied.

N.D.C.C. § 47-19-46

An unrecorded North Dakota instrument is valid between the parties to it and against those who have notice of it, but knowledge of the record of an instrument outside the chain of title does not amount to that notice. A conveyance recorded before the deed that vested record title in its grantor stops being out of the chain once that later deed is recorded.

Checked July 30, 2026. Read at section 47-19-46. This is the rule that tells a title searcher how far the search actually has to go, and it is the practical companion to the priority rule: a document that sits outside the chain of title does not bind a purchaser merely because it is on record somewhere. The proviso at the end of the section is the exception that matters, and it is recorded here because it is easy to miss: a mortgage, deed or other conveyance recorded before the instrument that vested record title in the mortgagor or grantor is no longer treated as out of the chain of title once that instrument is itself recorded.

N.D.C.C. § 38-11.1-04

A North Dakota mineral developer must pay the surface owner, and any tenant, a sum equal to the damages sustained for lost land value, lost use of and access to the land, and lost value of improvements caused by drilling operations. Compensation may not be reserved or assigned away from the surface estate, except to a tenant of it.

Checked July 30, 2026. Read at section 38-11.1-04 in the Century Code chapter PDF for chapter 38-11.1, which is headed Oil and Gas Production Damage Compensation. Two features are worth having in front of a surface owner. The anti-assignment provision means the right to this compensation cannot be stripped out of the surface estate by an earlier instrument, so a surface owner who bought land whose minerals were long since severed still holds it. And the amount may be fixed by any formula the parties mutually agree, with harm from exploration compensated by a single sum payment and consideration given to the period over which the loss occurs. The payments cover only land directly affected by drilling operations. Where owner and tenant have not agreed a division, the tenant recovers from the owner the portion attributable to the tenant's share of damages.

N.D.C.C. § 38-11.1-09

A North Dakota surface owner who rejects the developer's compensation offer may sue, and if the court awards more than was offered the court must award the owner reasonable attorney's fees, costs and disbursements, and interest on the final award running from the day drilling commenced at the Bank of North Dakota prime rate on the date of judgment.

Checked July 30, 2026. Read at section 38-11.1-09. This is the provision that makes the compensation duty enforceable by an ordinary landowner rather than only by one who can fund litigation, and no other state on this record has anything like it: the word is shall, not may, and the trigger is simply beating the offer. Interest runs from the day drilling commenced rather than from judgment, at the prime rate charged by the Bank of North Dakota on the date of the judgment. Section 38-11.1-09.1 separately allows either party, within one year after an offer is rejected, to involve the North Dakota mediation service or another civil mediator, with the cost split equally if the parties cannot agree it. A pretrial appraisal requirement at section 38-11.1-07.1 was seen in the chapter and not read.

N.D.C.C. § 38-08-08(1)

Where interests in a North Dakota spacing unit are not pooled voluntarily the Industrial Commission shall, on the application of any interested person, pool them by order after notice and hearing. An unleased mineral interest pooled after July 31, 2009 is entitled to a cost-free royalty equal to the acreage weighted average royalty of the leased tracts in the unit, or at the operator's election a cost-free royalty of sixteen percent.

Checked July 30, 2026. Read at section 38-08-08 in the Century Code chapter PDF for chapter 38-08. This is the strongest protection for an unleased owner on this record and it is the reason North Dakota's forced pooling reads differently from Oklahoma's or Ohio's: the floor is stated as a number rather than left to the terms of an order. For interests pooled before August 1, 2009 the equivalent entitlement could not be less than a one-eighth interest. The remainder of the unleased interest beyond the cost-free royalty is treated as a lessee or cost-bearing interest, so the protection is a floor and not the whole of the position. Every pooling order must be on terms just and reasonable that afford each owner the opportunity to recover, without unnecessary expense, that owner's just and equitable share, must provide for drilling and operation costs plus a reasonable supervision charge, and the commission determines proper costs in a dispute. An owner who pays another's share obtains a lien on that owner's production under section 38-08-10, which was not read.