Oil and Gas, Natural Resources, and Energy Journal Volume 2 | Number 1 May 2016 The Life Estate and the Power to Commit Waste: Using a Power Analysis to Resolve Oil & Gas Title Issues Created by Future Interests Anthony J. Ford Crowley Fleck PLLP Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.law.ou.edu/onej Part of the Energy and Utilities Law Commons, Natural Resources Law Commons, and the Oil, Gas, and Mineral Law Commons Recommended Citation Anthony J. Ford, The Life Estate and the Power to Commit Waste: Using a Power Analysis to Resolve Oil & Gas Title Issues Created by Future Interests, 2 Oil & Gas, Nat. Resources & Energy J. 1 (2016), http://digitalcommons.law.ou.edu/onej/vol2/iss1/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by University of Oklahoma College of Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Oil and Gas, Natural Resources, and Energy Journal by an authorized administrator of University of Oklahoma College of Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. ONE J Oil and Gas, Natural Resources, and Energy Journal VOLUME 2 NUMBER 1 THE LIFE ESTATE AND THE POWER TO COMMIT WASTE: USING A POWER ANALYSIS TO RESOLVE OIL & GAS TITLE ISSUES CREATED BY FUTURE INTERESTS ANTHONY J. FORD I. Introduction The law of future interests has a well-deserved reputation as a difficult area of law: it “revels in unhelpful complexity, elevates form over substance, and frustrates the very transactions it should facilitate.”1 Title examiners and land professionals frequently encounter future interests and have long recognized that the presence of a life estate can complicate oil and gas development.2 Development can be further complicated when the creator of a life estate grants “extra” rights or powers to the life tenant.3 It is generally acknowledged, for instance, that a grantor who creates a 1.