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State law reference

Do Mineral Rights Expire in Massachusetts?

Do mineral rights expire in Massachusetts? No Massachusetts statute was found that ends a severed mineral interest for nonuse or under a marketable title act. The General Laws' title clearing statutes target other interests: G.L. c. 184, §§ 23 and 26 to 30 limit old restrictions, and G.L. c. 260, § 31A bars old rights of entry and possibilities of reverter not preserved by a 1964 filing.

  • Release 2026.10.1
  • Reviewed October 1, 2026
  • CC BY 4.0

No statute found Researched and checked by American Mineral Registry by searching the text it could read, which turned up no statute on this point; review completed October 1, 2026. Reference research, not legal advice.

Rule type
No such statute found
Period
None
Ends without a surface owner step
Not applicable
Preservation filing
Not applicable
Forced pooling statute
No statute found
Surface damages statute
No statute found
Deceased or unlocated owner
Partly checked
Do Mineral Rights Expire in Massachusetts?: map of the 51 U.S. jurisdictions with Massachusetts marked and the 17 others that share its rule type, no such statute found shaded
Massachusetts is one of 18 jurisdictions that had no statute of these kinds in AMR’s search of the official code. Every jurisdiction’s rule type is on Mineral Rights by State.

How the rule works

No dormant mineral or marketable title statute identified. No Massachusetts statute was found that ends a severed mineral interest for nonuse or under a marketable title act. The General Laws' title clearing statutes target other interests: G.L. c. 184, §§ 23 and 26 to 30 limit old restrictions, and G.L. c. 260, § 31A bars old rights of entry and possibilities of reverter not preserved by a 1964 filing. A proposed Landowner's Title Protection Act (new chapter 183D, 50 year chain of title) was filed in several sessions but not enacted.

Scope

Interests covered
Not applicable; no mechanism identified.
Minerals covered
Not applicable.
Enactment and amendments
No dormancy statute identified in the General Laws provisions reviewed.
What AMR searched
Read the G.L. c. 184 section list (archived May 10, 2026) and G.L. c. 260, § 31A (archived October 14, 2025). Bills to insert chapter 183D, the Landowner's Title Protection Act, were found for 2013 (S.700), 2017 (S.796), 2019 (S.893) and 2021 (S.979, marked dead December 31, 2022 by a bill tracker); none was enacted, and no General Laws page for chapter 183D exists in the Internet Archive while pages for chapters 183A to 183C do. A full text search of the General Laws was not possible because malegislature.gov was not available when AMR checked.

What “none found” means. AMR searched the official code for a dormant mineral, abandonment, lapse or forfeiture statute and found none. That does not mean a mineral interest can never be lost: deeds, title defects, tax sales, adverse possession and other rules can still affect ownership, and they are outside this review.

Dates and what they mean

There is no statutory nonuse period to calculate for this jurisdiction under the rules AMR reviewed.

No lapse mechanism found, so there is no date to compute.

Deceased or unlocated owner

Partly checked What the law of Massachusetts says when the owner of record has died, is unknown, or cannot be found. It sets out the questions; it does not decide who owns an interest, whether a notice was valid, or whether an interest ended.

Why only partly checked. Still open: court, receivership or trust for missing owners.

No Massachusetts statute was found that ends a severed mineral interest for nonuse or addresses a deceased, unknown or unlocated mineral owner. The real property and title action chapters read do not mention minerals; chapter 240 has general procedures for unknown respondents in title actions, which may apply to a mineral interest and were not reviewed in substance. Probate, partition and unclaimed property law were not reviewed, and a whole code search was not possible.

Owner of record has died
Not addressed in the provisions read.
Current owner unknown
Not addressed in the provisions read. General title action procedure for unknown respondents exists in c. 240 and was not reviewed.
Owner known but cannot be found
Not addressed in the provisions read. General title action procedure for respondents who cannot be served exists in c. 240 and was not reviewed.

How the nonuse rule treats these owners Not addressed in the provisions read

No Massachusetts statute ending a severed mineral interest for nonuse or under a marketable record title act was found in the provisions read. General quiet title procedure in c. 240, probate and partition may apply to the interest of a deceased, unknown or unlocated owner and were not reviewed.

Heirs, devisees and successors Not addressed in the provisions read

No mineral specific provision on heirs, devisees or successors was found in c. 184 or c. 240.

Search required to find the owner Not addressed in the provisions read

No mineral specific search requirement was found in the provisions read.

Who gets notice, and how Not addressed in the provisions read

No mineral specific notice procedure was found. Chapter 240 sections 12 and 13 deal with unknown respondents and respondents who cannot be served in title actions generally; they were not reviewed.

Notice by publication Not addressed in the provisions read

No mineral specific publication rule was found in the provisions read.

How the owner responds or preserves Not addressed in the provisions read

There is no lapse mechanism, so no preservation filing exists in the provisions read.

Court, receivership or trust for missing owners Not yet verified

No verified statement yet.

What a title review must establish

  1. Because no lapse statute was found, who holds record title to the mineral interest by deed, will or descent?
  2. If a c. 240 action is used to clear the interest, how were unknown respondents described and served?

Dates. The provisions read create no period or deadline concerning mineral owners. The rule finder does not calculate this period.

What AMR searched. Read: the General Laws chapter pages for c. 184 (General Provisions Relative to Real Property) and c. 240 (Actions to Try Title, Quiet Title and Remove Clouds), through Internet Archive copies (May 10, 2026 and November 14, 2025) because malegislature.gov was not available when AMR checked, including its law search. The word mineral appears on neither page. Chapter 240 has general procedures for unknown respondents and respondents who cannot be served (sections 12 and 13), which apply to land generally and were not reviewed in substance. The October review found no Massachusetts mineral lapse or marketable record title statute (a proposed chapter 183D was not enacted) and no oil and gas conservation chapter. Not reviewed: probate, partition, unclaimed property (c. 200A), and a whole code full text search. A point marked not addressed means only that the provisions read do not address it; probate, quiet title and other general procedures may still apply and were not reviewed.

Not settled by this review.

Read G.L. c. 240, sections 6 to 13, for how unknown or unlocated holders of severed mineral interests are joined and noticed in title actions.

Run a whole code search for unknown or missing owner, receiver and escrow provisions near mineral, oil or gas once malegislature.gov is reachable; check c. 200A for mineral proceeds.

Checked October 6, 2026. Also in the dormant mineral rule finder.

Forced pooling

No statute found No Massachusetts statute on oil and gas conservation, spacing or compulsory pooling was found.

Searched: Same limited review as for dormancy; no chapter on oil and gas production was located in the General Laws pages read. Not a full text search.

Surface damages

No statute found No Massachusetts surface damages or split estate statute was found.

Searched: Same limited review as for dormancy. Not a full text search.

Taxes

Broad personal income tax: yes. Nonresidents owe Massachusetts tax on gross income derived from or effectively connected with the ownership of any interest in real or tangible personal property located in Massachusetts, and residents are taxed on their taxable income. Official text cited Source and notes.

Severance or production tax. Not part of AMR’s October 2026 tax review, which covered 25 producing states; that is not a finding that Massachusetts levies none. Use the state revenue agency’s own pages.

Not tax advice. Rates change and the cited source controls.

Sources for the dormant mineral rule

Each source was read on the date shown. Where an official site was not available, the official page was read through a dated Internet Archive copy and that is stated.

  1. G.L. c. 260, § 31A (related title clearing statute, not mineral)The General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Official statute. Read October 1, 2026, via Internet Archive snapshot October 14, 2025. Source ID SRC-MA-001.
    “No proceeding based upon any right of entry for condition broken or possibility of reverter, to which a fee simple or fee simple determinable in land is subject, created before the second day of January, nineteen hundred and fifty-five, shall be maintained in any court after the first day of January, nineteen hundred and sixty-four”

Open questions for a specialist

This review did not settle these points. They are where a Massachusetts title attorney or landman should look first.

The General Laws could not be searched in full text; a mineral specific provision outside the chapters reviewed cannot be ruled out.

Whether any 2023 to 2026 session bill on marketable title was enacted was not checked after the 2021 bill.

Common questions

Can mineral rights lapse in Massachusetts?

A search of Massachusetts’s official code found no dormant mineral, lapse or forfeiture statute, so an interest does not lapse through nonuse under a statute of that kind. Deeds, tax sales and title rules can still affect ownership.

Does Massachusetts allow forced pooling?

A search of Massachusetts’s official code found no forced pooling statute. The scope of that search is under Forced pooling above.

Does Massachusetts require payment for surface damage?

A search of Massachusetts’s official code found no surface damages statute of that kind. Leases, deeds and general law can still give the surface owner a claim.

What changed

The June 2026 edition listed Massachusetts as Does not lapse, lapse period none. Release 2026.10 replaced that entry with the reviewed rule above, and retired the June risk score and ranking for every state. Release 2026.10.1 added the deceased or unlocated owner section. See all changes.

Cite this page

American Mineral Registry. "Do Mineral Rights Expire in Massachusetts?" U.S. Mineral Rights Law Atlas, release 2026.10.1, October 6, 2026. https://americanmineralregistry.com/research/states/do-mineral-rights-expire-in-massachusetts

General information about statutes, not legal advice and not a title opinion. Facts about a specific interest decide the outcome. Published by American Mineral Registry, which also runs a commercial service for owners; see how the two relate.