Ownership and estates
Mineral rights
The right to extract minerals from beneath a parcel
Sub-surface rights can be severed from surface ownership and sold or leased on their own, creating a split estate where one party owns the surface and another owns what is under it. The mineral owner generally holds an implied right of reasonable surface access to reach it.
How the exam asks about it
The examinable point is severability: a buyer of the surface may not be buying what lies beneath, and a title search is what reveals whether the estate was split.
Related terms
Sitting the license exam? Find out what you actually know.
Free practice questions built to the published national content outline, with an explanation after every answer. No account, no paywall.
Independent exam preparation. Real Estate Exam Bank is not a state-approved pre-licensing course and completing anything here does not satisfy any state education requirement. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or authorized by any state real estate commission, Pearson VUE, or PSI. Practice questions here are original study material, not the official exam.