It is against public policy for any oil or gas lease, at its inception, to provide for the waiver of any rights created by this article, or for such rights to be waived by amendment to any oil or gas lease within 20 years of the date of its execution by a plaintiff or the plaintiff's predecessor in interest.
§ 772.060.Waiver of Rights Created By Article
Title 10. Actions In Particular Cases · Chapter 4.5. Special Actions and Proceedings to Clear Title · Article 3. Right of Entry or Occupation of Surface Lands Under Oil or Gas Lease · Enacted 1980 · no amendments on record · Last verified July 28, 2026
In one sentenceSection 772.060 declares it against public policy for an oil or gas lease to waive the rights this article creates at its inception, or for those rights to be waived by an amendment made within twenty years of the lease's original execution by the plaintiff or a predecessor in interest.
Full Text of § 772.060
Plain-English Summary
This article's protections would carry little weight if a lessee could write them away in the original lease document. Section 772.060 forecloses that: no oil or gas lease may waive these rights at its inception.
The same rule reaches later amendments, with a time limit tied to the twenty-year threshold that § 772.040 already uses. Rights created by this article cannot be waived by an amendment made within twenty years of the date the plaintiff, or the plaintiff's predecessor in interest, originally executed the lease — closing off an easy end-run around the article's core age requirement.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can a lease waive the surface-termination rights in this article from the start?
No. Section 772.060 makes it against public policy for any oil or gas lease to waive these rights at its inception.
Can a later amendment achieve the same waiver?
Not within twenty years of the lease's original execution by the plaintiff or a predecessor in interest — such an amendment cannot waive rights created by this article.
Why tie this to a twenty-year period?
It matches the twenty-year age threshold in § 772.040, preventing an early amendment from defeating the very timing requirement the termination action depends on.
Amendment History
Added by Stats. 1980, Ch. 44, Sec. 16.
Source & verification. Section text is reproduced verbatim from
the Deering's California Codes Annotated / vLex. Enacted by the California Legislature.
Last verified July 28, 2026.
· Official source
Also known as: waiver of oil lease surface rights californiapublic policy oil and gas lease california