Severed Estate
Gridlync land and infrastructure glossary.
A severed estate exists when the surface rights and the mineral or subsurface rights to a property are owned by different parties. Each estate can be sold, leased, and used independently, subject to the rights of the other. Severance usually happens when an owner sells or reserves the minerals separately from the surface, after which the two estates have different owners and records. In most jurisdictions the mineral estate is dominant, so the mineral owner has a right to use reasonable surface to access the resource.
Severed estates make land records more complex. Gridlync keeps surface, subsurface, and access agreements organized for each tract.
Example
When the Bradley family sold their farm to a neighbor decades ago, they reserved the minerals. Today the Bradleys lease oil and gas rights to Redstone Operating while the neighbor still owns and farms the surface, creating a severed estate over the same 320 acres.