Federal wetland easements are perpetual and recorded
In the Prairie Pothole Region the Fish and Wildlife Service bought wetland easements from willing landowners, mostly with Federal Duck Stamp revenue authorized by the Migratory Bird Hunting Stamp Act of March 16, 1934. The easement is perpetual, runs with the land, and is recorded with the county register of deeds; the covered basins are mapped on an exhibit attached to the instrument. The landowner agrees not to drain, fill, level, or burn the covered wetlands, and keeps the right to farm, graze, or hay them when they dry naturally. More than 28,000 such easements cover over 1.5 million acres across Montana, the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Iowa.
Every section line is a public road
N.D.C.C. § 24-07-03 declares the congressional section lines public roads open for public travel to a width of thirty-three feet on each side of the line — a 66-foot corridor along every section boundary in the state, whether or not a road was ever built there and whether or not the owner has ever seen anyone use it. Closing one is a county process: the board of county commissioners may act on a petition from adjoining landowners, after a hearing and a finding of public benefit, on grounds such as ten years of non-use, natural obstacles, or an adequate alternate route. Survey monuments may not be disturbed.
Minerals are usually severed and separately owned
Across the Bakken and much of the rest of the state, the mineral estate was severed from the surface generations ago, so a deed can convey the ground and none of what is under it. Check the chain rather than assuming. North Dakota gives the surface owner two statutory footholds. Chapter 38-18.1 terminates a mineral interest unused for twenty years: after notice by publication, and absent a recorded statement of claim, title to the abandoned interest vests in the surface owner, who then records a statement of succession in interest. Chapter 38-11.1, the Oil and Gas Production Damage Compensation Act, makes the operator compensate the surface owner for lost land value and lost use.
Who may own farmland is restricted
North Dakota's corporate farming law, N.D.C.C. chapter 10-06.1, began as an initiated measure adopted in June 1932 and still restricts which entities may own farmland or ranchland or engage in farming and ranching. Individuals, closely related family members, cooperatives, qualifying family farm corporations and limited liability companies, and partnerships whose partners are themselves eligible may hold agricultural land; a general business corporation generally may not. House Bill 1371, enacted in 2023, opened a narrow lane for corporations and LLCs owning livestock production facilities, subject to caps on members, ownership by active farmers, and acres held. Who can take title is worth settling early, not at closing.