Ranching and Agricultural Law

Texas Ranching Lawyer: Ranching, Agricultural, and Rural Property Law

If you own a ranch, farm, or rural property in Texas, the legal issues cut across real estate, business, water, mineral, and environmental law at once. Counsel who understands rural Texas property makes a real difference.

If you own a ranch, farm, or rural property in Texas, the legal issues cut across real estate, business, water, mineral, and environmental law at once. Many attorneys do not handle these often enough to know the difference between a grazing lease and a surface use agreement, or between a mineral right and a royalty interest. Counsel who actually understands rural Texas property makes a real difference.

Ranching and agricultural law is a focus of the firm’s practice. It works with ranchers, farmers, hunters, landowners, and agricultural businesses across Texas, from small family operations to multi-thousand-acre ranches.

Land, Mineral & Surface Rights: What You Actually Own, and How To Protect It

Mineral and surface estate
Texas recognizes severed estates, so the minerals under your land may be owned by someone else. The firm helps landowners understand what they own, negotiate surface use agreements with mineral lessees and operators, protect surface interests against unreasonable development, and handle mineral leases, royalty disputes, and accumulation of mineral rights.

Water rights
Texas water law is complex: surface water is generally state-owned and subject to prior appropriation, while groundwater is governed by the rule of capture and, increasingly, by groundwater conservation districts. The firm advises on water-rights acquisition, well permitting, conservation-district matters, and disputes between neighboring landowners.

Easements and access
Express, implied, prescriptive, and necessity easements all arise in rural property. The firm handles easement drafting and disputes over scope and use, including road, utility, and pipeline easements and negotiation with oil-and-gas operators.

Boundary and fence-line disputes
Rural boundary disputes often involve century-old deeds, missing markers, and fence lines that may not match the legal description. The firm handles these through survey review, negotiation, and, where necessary, litigation.

Leases & Operations: The Agreements That Run the Operation

Grazing leases
Cattle and livestock grazing leases, including the terms most often disputed: stocking rates, water access, fence maintenance, weather contingencies, and liability allocation.

Hunting leases
Hunting and recreational leases for landowners earning income from sport hunting, including liability protections under Texas hunting-lease statutes.

Farming and crop-share leases
Agricultural leases for crop production, including share-cropping arrangements, equipment use, and termination provisions.

Agricultural and wildlife-management valuation
Texas property-tax treatment for agricultural and wildlife-management use, and the rollback-tax risks when land changes use.

Ranch & Farm Succession: Keeping the Operation in the Family

Passing a ranch or farm to the next generation involves more than a will: deciding which children are involved in the operation, how to treat those who are not, how to handle estate tax and basis, and how to structure entities so the operation keeps running through transitions. The firm works with ranch families on long-term succession planning, often over years rather than weeks, in coordination with your CPA and tax advisor. See the Estate Planning & Asset Protection page for the foundation.

Disputes: When Agricultural Matters Go to Court

When disputes arise over leases, boundaries, water, livestock, mineral rights, or contracts, the firm handles them the way it handles its other litigation: honest assessment, careful preparation, and a willingness to try the case if that is what it takes.