Thirty-five acres is the dividing line
Wyoming regulates land division by county: W.S. 18-5-304 requires a subdivision permit from the board of county commissioners. W.S. 18-5-303(b) then removes the whole article from sales where the parcels involved are 35 acres or larger, provided each parcel gets recorded ingress, egress and utility easements at least 40 feet wide to a public road, unless the grantee waives them. Subsection (a) exempts smaller divisions in narrow cases, including a single gift or sale to an immediate family member, subject to holding periods before and after the division. A recorded conservation easement under the Uniform Conservation Easement Act, W.S. 34-1-201 through 34-1-207, is a separate limit that runs unlimited in duration unless the instrument says otherwise.
The minerals may belong to someone else
Split estate is ordinary in Wyoming: the surface and the minerals beneath it were often severed generations ago, and federal minerals under private surface are common. The mineral estate is generally dominant, meaning the mineral owner or its lessee has a right of reasonable surface use. The Wyoming Surface Owners' Accommodation Act, W.S. 30-5-401 through 30-5-410, puts procedure around that. An oil and gas operator must give the surface owner written notice of planned operations, facility locations and access routes no more than 180 days and no less than 30 days before commencing, and must attempt good faith negotiation of a surface use agreement. Absent agreement, the operator may proceed on a bond.
Corner crossing was decided in 2025
Nineteenth century railroad grants left much of Wyoming in a checkerboard, where public and private sections meet only at a corner. Whether a person may step from one public section to another at that corner, without touching the private ground, was litigated as Iron Bar Holdings, LLC v. Cape. The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, which covers Wyoming, decided it on March 18, 2025 in No. 23-8043, holding that the Unlawful Inclosures Act of 1885 preempts a state trespass claim against corner crossing on foot where the private land is not physically occupied. The Supreme Court denied certiorari on October 20, 2025.
Water attaches to the land, and lapses
Wyoming water rights are administered by the State Engineer, with the Board of Control handling adjudication and change proceedings. W.S. 41-3-101 makes beneficial use the basis, the measure and the limit of the right, and provides that rights attach to the land for irrigation or to the purpose for which they were acquired. Direct flow rights from the natural unstored flow of a stream cannot be detached from the lands or purpose they were acquired for, except through the statutory change procedures. Nonuse matters: W.S. 41-3-401 treats failure to apply water to the beneficial purpose during any five successive years as abandonment, subject to the statutory extension and declaration procedures.