Dear Kitchen,
"It is possible the developer knew he passed minerals and never told anyone (so he could keep the royalties), and it is also possible he thought he had retained the minerals therefore it was a non-issue."
This is exactly what we think! One of those scenarios.
We live in the middle of LA, adjacent to Beverly Hills, in a densely populated neighborhood that was developed in the 20s. There was no reason anyone in the building would have said, "I wonder if they are pulling oil from underneath our condo. I'll bet we're due royalties!"
The well in question is over 2 miles away. It was a fluke that Venoco found the change in ownership and contacted us. And it was a violation of the oil and gas lease for the developer not to advise Venoco and PXP in the change of ownership.
I personally think they THOUGHT they reserved the mineral rights, but it fell through the cracks. The fact is that if you want to reserve the mineral rights for yourself, it has to be stated on the Grant Deed to the first person you sell to. There are no Warranty Deeds in California. But then I heard that if they were ASSIGNED to someone, that was a way to retain them.
So I'm going forward with taking him to small claims court for conversion and I will attempt to get part of the $13,000 he collected in my stead over 24 years. We figure he pocketed close to $500,000 over the last 32 years from all the owners. Son of a bitch :-)
I do wish someone in Texas knew who Thermobuilt, Inc. was. They are not on my preliminary title report as an owner of the property. There were in fact owners who held an oil and gas lease and sold to the developer.
Thank you!
Pat