Mineral Rights in Travis County: What Landowners Should Know

In Texas, the oil, gas, and other resources under the ground can belong to someone other than the person who owns the dirt on top. It's called a severed mineral estate, and it means buying a parcel in Travis County does not automatically hand you what lies beneath it. The deed is where this gets settled, so read it (or have your title company read it) for what's actually conveyed.

Travis County has never been serious oil-and-gas country, so for most homes this is a footnote. On rural and Hill Country tracts it deserves a closer look, because a long-ago severance can still grant a mineral owner the right to come onto the surface. To see permits or activity on or near a property, the Texas Railroad Commission's GIS viewer at rrc.texas.gov maps it out, and the RRC keeps a landowner resource page at rrc.texas.gov/about-us/audience-pages/land-mineral-owners/.