Opinion ID: 2831391
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Title Documents

Text: The court of appeals first considered whether Key had the contractual right to use the road across the Hegars’ property by virtue of its lease and pooling agreement. 403 S.W.3d at 325. The court concluded that the Hegars were not bound by the lease or the pooling agreement because those documents were not executed at the time the mineral and surface estates were first severed and, therefore, they were not within the Hegars’ chain of title. Id. at 326. The court further considered Key’s implied surface rights and concluded that those rights did not allow Key to use the road across the Hegar tract. Id. at 333. As related to the title documents, Key argues that the law does not require recording a mineral lease in a surface purchaser’s chain of title. However, we need not decide whether the lease 2 The Richardson lease is not in the record, but the declaration of pooled unit states that both leases grant the right to pool. The Hegars do not argue that the Richardson lease does not grant the right to pool or that the pooling was in bad faith. 6 was required to be in the Hegars’ chain of title in order to bind them. As we explain below, Key’s owners, as the mineral owners, and Key, as the mineral lessee, have implied property rights to use the Hegars’ surface.