State Law is unconstitutional. This is a basic infringement on property rights.
I take the same position on “ground rents” that some cities have.
Split estates are the law of the west.
They’re also the #1 reason why we westerners would dearly love everyone else in the country to shut their pieholes and get out of our business.
There are the following estates on a piece of ground just about anywhere in the west:
1. Water rights to springs and seeps on the surface.
2. Water rights to underground water (ie wells).
3. Water rights to ephemeral streams.
4. Water rights to year-round streams, creeks and rivers.
5. Mineral rights on the surface.
6. Mineral rights under the surface.
7. Grazing rights to the forage on the surface.
8. Development rights.
9. Surface estate rights (ie, you can do something on the surface of the land, including farm or ranch).
And so on. This is not an exhaustive list.
Easterners think that “you own the land you own it all.” Not so. This was true only in the original 13 colonies, and then not uniformly in all 13 states. In western states, split estate property rights are the rule, not the exception, and we don’t even survey our land in the same manner as the original 13 states and/or Texas.