Matthew (and anyone else in a similar situation)-
These videos try to answer some common questions new mineral rights owners have in mineral rights leasing:
http://mineralrightscoach.com/watch-this-first/
http://mineralrightscoach.com/introduction-to-mineral-rights-leasing/
We put out new videos regularly - be sure to subscribe to find out when these are published.
Cheers,
Bret
Mathew-
I have been in the same boat for the last 11 months, lost & found is exciting and tedious, sorry about the passing of your mother. I'm not an attorney, landman and by no means an expert in this field but I do know you have a lot of small steps to take prior to the conclusion of this matter. You'll have to get deeds put into your name and aunt, affidavits filled, possibly open your mothers estate again and that's just to get to a starting point. Then you need to go through it again to get into your name, others will chime in because as I said I'm not a lawyer, but these are some of the steps I've gone through. Find a very good attorney, they will walk you through the steps of quitclaims, if appropriate or other ways. Always question the attorney until your satisfied, and your last question being "Is this the least expensive way to protect our rights and in our best interest". Beware of wolves in sheep's clothing, free professional advise is often costly.
Best Regards- John
Hey Bret & John,
Thanks for the replies. It took a long time (about 1.5 years), but I finally got everything settled. The deeds are now in my aunt and my name, and the unclaimed property funds have been released to us. I have many people on this forum for which I am thankful.
The only piece that remains is proving she also owned at least one other section of mineral rights. I'm really busy with work, but am hoping to reengage the adventure in 2013.
Cheers!
- Matthew
I didn't read all three pages of comments, but I am curious as to what the unclaimed funds were for.
You are correct Joe. I have been involved in an estate where the minerals will divided 42 ways! Now these are producing minerals with wells in 640 acre spacing. Current income is $350/ month on 4 wells. Now there are 240 acres owned. They would sell for right now $1500.00 per acre. That is more than the surface is worth I can tell you that. $1500×240=$360,000. Divide that by 42 you get $8571.00. Not a great amount but you get it right now. Now if you get the $350 a month by 42 each share gets $8.33 a month. Barely enough for a steak dinner! If you want to wait 85.74 years then you will be where you are RIGHT NOW! Then during those 85 years people die and your share will be worth a lot less than that when it gets passed on. These wells are held by production so it could be YEARS before anything else happens. Yes there is oil there, but you are right on the money Joe. Unless you want to be cool and say you own an oil well, take the money, put somewhere erning something and enjoy it in 20-30 years from now. Or enjoy it now. Whichever you do it is better than keeping track of it for 86 years. Now this is just my opinion as an executor of an estate.
Mineral Joe said:
Charles, I have 1000's of mineral acres I'd love to sell to you and I won't even ask millions then you can sit back and make billions, maybe trillions. For every one that made any money on minerals there were 100's of thousands that didn't. Minerals in Comanche county are worth a fraction of what minerals are worth in producing counties of ND. Yeah maybe one day, maybe not but it's wrong to tell someone to never sell and they may never make a dime, not all stories end like a fairytale. That's very poor advice your giving people.
Matthew,
The unclaimed money could be from anything like utility or insurance refund, what was your grandparents name and I'll take a look if it were from a pooling order and if you give me the legals I'll let you know if there were any wells or you could pay thousands to an oil & gas attorney as recommended by someone else here?
Did you only participate in one estate or is this your business?
I have been working on my mother's and grandmother's estate and trying to straighten out mineral rights that have been neglected since the '80s. I have been fortunate enough to find thousands of dollars for myself and my family, but not without a lot of work. I started here, on this site, and have taken advise from many. Some good, some not so much, but it all taught me. It turned out for us the state of ND was holding a pretty fair chunk of change. I guess what I'm trying to say is that everyone's situation is different and while selling your rights may seem like good idea, please do not do so without knowing exactly what you are selling.
In one situation, I was offered about $20,000.00 for one piece of land. Upon researching I found that particular parcel had over $100,000.00 in suspense on it. That's a lot more money, plus the monthly income it will provide when probate is complete.
For a newby like myself it has been a lot of research. I also found that my family owns much more than what was known when I first started. Your journey may be very very different, but it is a journey worth taking.
Janie speaks the truth. It took me a boatload of research, time and some money to secure the OK mineral rights we found in my grandmother's name. But it was worth it in the end. Some company offered $2000 for the rights ... which had $28,000 in suspense. Sneaky bastards.
I think there is more as well, but need to find the time to do further investigations.
Right Matthew there are some cheats out there more than not will take advantage of you if you let them. They are counting on people needing money fast and they are ready to cheat them! I am not saying that every deal will not pay off, it just goes to show how through estates, those shares geg lost. Some are so watered down that you may only have an acre or so coming to you but that is how it is forgotton through the years of producing such a small amount or nothing that people forget. Then it may hit a hot spot and boom, the forgotten rights are sent to the unclaimed property fund. I guess that is how they find out about them. I remeber there used to be an iinfomercial about searching the unclaimed property funds of a state and contacting a person telling them they have money coming to them and how to get them to let you claim it and keep some for yourself. There is always someone not wanting to work and get something for nothing. A banker was telling me yesterday how many people come in wanting to wire money to a foreign country so they can receive thousands back from them. He said he tried to talk an old man out of doing that and held it up for three days. The old man demanded they wire 200K of his money to Nigeria. He told him it was a scam but he said he could not live with hisself if he passed up that opportunity. The old man is now living on welfare. In God we trust....all others we investigate!