Federal Mining Claims and sites are considered real property. The interests in them and associated rights may be bought, sold, transferred, leased, rented ,willed or inherited. If a claim or site meets all the federal and State requirements, the claimant has a possesory right to develop and extract minerals found on that mining claim. (source Bureau of Land Management).

unpatented mining claims have annual fees or work that need to be paid or performed by claimant to keep claim active , if fee of $165 is not paid annually before September 1st each year you will lose your claim. see BLM website for all information needed on owning a claim