Oklahoma

Some land in eastern Oklahoma cannot be sold by its owner alone, and the reason goes back to allotment: when the Five Tribes — Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek) and Seminole — had their communally held territory broken up and allotted to individual members, each allotment carried a federal restriction against alienation.

Land still in restricted status today cannot be sold, leased, mortgaged or encumbered without the approval of the Department of the Interior, and it is not subject to state property tax while it stays that way.

The Stigler Act Amendments of 2018 changed who can hold it, replacing the old requirement that an owner have at least one-half Indian blood with a test of lineal descent from an original enrollee on the Dawes Rolls, so restricted land now stays restricted through generations that would previously have taken it free and clear.

The restriction covers mineral interests as well as the surface, which matters in a state where oil and gas rights were severed from the land generations ago and are frequently owned by people with no connection to the farm above them.

For a family holding an allotment, that means a sale involves a federal agency rather than only a title company.

Whether a particular parcel is restricted is answered by its history rather than by anything visible on the ground, so it is worth establishing early.

Oklahoma is also a state where land outweighs houses across most of its area, wheat and cattle country in the west, timber and pasture in the southeast, so the parcel rather than the building is usually what is being sold.