I have been told for many years that we own thousands of acres of mineral rights in Texas and surrounding areas. I was told they can never be sold, only passed down through direct descndents. Now I have two main questions.
1. How true is this? I can't find much online to help with this question.
2. How do I go about finding out if someone is already drilling on land we own the mineral rights to and of they are, what can be done to get our royalties?
We live in Ohio so it's hard for us to run out and see what's going on. Any help on these issues would be greatly appreciated. My father knows the counties in which these rights are owned.
Please accept my friend request and shoot me a message. I can help determine the extent of your ownership, and whether or not the lands are being drilled or have any permits filed.
As far as never being able to sell them, that sounds very odd and is likely untrue. You may not own "executive rights", which means you can't sign leases, but regardless of what type of rights they are, if you own them (or a portion) individually and they are not in some sort of trust, business, etc., then you may sell them as you please. Perhaps there is an old will that contains certain language requiring your minerals to be passed to descendants, but that does not usually extend past 1-2 generations. Each case is different, though, so I will gladly take a look into it if you wish.
For whatever reason, I only just now received your posting. Another quirk The Forum folks are working on, I suppose.
I will be happy to help you as well. All I need are the legal descriptions to look up what is happening on the subject lands.
If all you have are the Counties and the family name(s) the interests might be in will make things more difficult: Texas has 254 Counties on only a small percentage of them have their records available for public review online.
Thank you both for the replies. I will get with my father who has the paperwork on everything. This will make it much easier since there is some interest in you helping.