Hi again, I am still struggling to figure out what I inherited from my mother in 2018. I receive payments from Silver Hill Energy, a statement from Burk Royalty, and a payment from BPX every month or so. When I first inherited BPX drilled a new well. From what I know these are related to rights in Caddo Parish LA and Panola County TX. I don’t have a great description of what I own, and am especially confused about two things-- the property records in Texas look like my mother’s name is still on some of the interests, and Panola is in LA, so I’m concerned that the ownership rights may not have transferred.
I just started getting a much larger check from BPX (Caddo).
How do I definitively figure out my ownership? I am a teacher and have spent money on a lawyer (no help) and tried to find a sandman last time I was on this forum but no one responded. I also tried the well data site but have no idea how to use it and am not finding anything.
I am trying to now write my own will and need to find this information in service to my son, but seemingly can’t! Please help.
@miss, are you keeping copies of your check stubs and payment details? This is often a good starting point. Also, online county land and deed records for your counties are available, and these are often free to search for your own name or your ancestors names. The state well maps are also good if you can locate your wells by name or api number. There is a lot to put together, but those are the starting places. Be patient and you will likely be able to piece it together, but keep asking questions as needed.
Thank you-- I am. But what I now am seeing is that 3 properties never got transferred to heirs while 5 did, and then there is a total confusion with two deeds that I have which are only mete and bound descriptions and no one can tell whether they were ever properly recorded- I can’t use metes and bounds to compare those deeds to what is recorded in the Panola County data. So I have at least two complications. I am going to call Panola County Monday with the deed page number where there was a mineral lease recorded to Union Producing Company in 1948. Hopefully that will help some, but I’m still stumped about translating metes and bounds to lots.
I answered in your separate post. Metes and bounds is the legal description of your tract within a specified section. The lease will use the same metes and description. The tract likely has an irregular shape as it followed a curve or canal etc when originally granted. It is not a lot like a house lot with an address.
You could go to Texasfile.com, go to Panola County, enter your mother’s name in the form (Last Name First Name), and see if any documents come up under her name. If you want to look at the documents, you will have to make an account. Document copies cost $1 per page, which is the same as the cost at the County Clerk’s office. You can check the document files to see if they contain any metes and bounds descriptions. You can also look up your lease by volume and page.
Another thing you can do is check with the owner relations of any operators that you get your run checks from. They are usually most unhelpful to mineral owners, but sometimes they respond.
Hi again-- here is a huge development in my understanding. I never understood that the deeds I am trying to figure out with Metes and Bounds descriptions are to the land rights I was willed/inherited, and the tax appraisal numbers where I found my mother’s name still on the rolls are about working wells/ leases that are currently earning money. So confusing but someone finally explained that! I found that the appraisal district in Panola had never recorded my mom’s will (my sister didn’t file it), but Silver Hill and Burk had done their job tracing whom they were supposed to pay. That’s a bit reassuring.
Now I need a landman in panola or a lawyer in Panola to file my two deeds with the mets and bounds descriptions with the PAnola County clerk’s office. So confusing and no one in the county was helpful besides one person, after tons of calls, emails and questions. So many people don’t have the privilege of time that I have-- I can’t imagine how anyone ever understands this stuff without being wealthy.
You don’t really need a landman or a lawyer to file your will. I can tell you how to do it right now.
First, call the county clerk’s office where your mother’s will was admitted to probate. If the will was probated in Texas, you need to order a certified copy of the will and the order admitting the will to probate. If it was probated out of Texas, you need an authenticated or exemplified copy of the will and the order admitting the will to probate. Then you need to file the certified or exemplified copies in the county clerk’s office for Panola County, Texas.
Ask the county clerks what the procedure is for ordering copies and filing. It is a little different for each county. County clerks are usually very helpful when it comes to that sort of administrative procedure. What they will never do is provide legal advice. That is actually illegal for them to do.
You can file the documents by mail, so you don’t have to actually go into the Panola County Clerk’s Office.
You will have to pay filing fees and fees for the copies, but an attorney or a landman would charge you that on top of their hourly or dayrate.
The next thing you do is email a filestamped copy to the operators that have you in suspense and ask for a transfer order to put the minerals in your name. At that point, they should put you in pay, and you should start receiving checks.
thank you SO MUCH for this clear and detailed list of steps. One thing I am missing is which operators are operating on the land in the deed. I am having this exact same issue with my husband’s rights-- he was also never named as the owner to the mineral rights he inherited in Cass County. I will follow your steps there too. But how do I figure out which operators are extracting minerals on my and his properties?
Then, click on the wells located on your land with the Well Identify tab selected. The site will give you the current operator for that well. Look up their website and email your file-stamped documents to owner relations.
The other way to do it is more costly and requires a bit of expertise. You actually have to run a title search on the leasehold estate to figure out who the current owner of your leasehold interest is, and then contact them. Looking at the chain of title can get complicated; I would not go this route unless you cannot locate your rights on the GIS map.
You may also want to post on this site, give some general location info, and see if someone familiar with Panola County knows who is operating in your general area so you can narrow the search.
There are a handful of free online “deedplotter” tools that will generate a visualization of your tract if you enter your metes & bounds description. It can be overwhelming for the layperson but I figured I’d drop you a couple links if you’d like to take a gander. It obviously won’t solve your filing/paperwork issues but it’s nice to know what you own and find it on a map.