Greetings!
I just ran across this forum and am hoping some of you experienced and knowledgeable people can provide me some much needed advice and guidance.
Background: Back in 1967 my parents purchased a residential property in Brighton that included the mineral rights. Sometime after Dad passed away in 2013, Mom started to receive offers to buy the rights; since the offers were a pittance, I advised her to just keep the rights. Later she accepted a lease for royalties and several companies have apparently been trading the lease ever since then, with very sporadic royalty payments to Mom. I believe the lease is currently held by PDC Energy, since the state of Colorado is holding about 30 unclaimed or undeliverable payments from them for royalty payments to Mom. I inherited the property when Mom passed away in 2021, and live there now, but have never seen a payment mailed to the house or show up in any accounts.
Issues: I need to find out how to transfer ownership of the mineral rights from Mom to myself and determine which, if any, royalty payments have not been paid. The payments Colorado is holding as unclaimed property are from 2022 and 2024, since none are from 2025, 2023 nor before 2022 I suspect there are more due to be paid.
Whom should I contact to get the ownership transferred? What information do I need to provide? How do I determine if there are payments missing from PDC and the previous lessees?
Any help, advice or guidance would be greatly appreciated
Thank you all in advance,
D