Hello all,Grandma set up a trust for my mother. My mother signed a lease and now we don’t know if she had the legal right to sign. The land should have been in my moms Trust. The executor should have had to sign instead HOLD ON, it’s a long story…
This property currently has vertical producing wells on site and we currently get royalty checks, however a new lease contract was mailed to us about two years ago, and I had some questions. None of us signed the lease and it was put on a back burner until recently. The History: July 2008, I informed Bluestone Energy Partners that my Mother had passed away recently and asked that the checks in her name be redistributed to her three children. I had also asked to renegotiate the lease. from Bluestone informed me that this was a transfer of royalties only and that the lease had already been signed and the land was currently being drilled. The money from the lease would be passed on when a"Division Order" was signed and returned, but no new negotiations would take place. I accepted this answer and signed a “Division Order” dated February 12, 2010 with an “Effective Date” of March 13, 2006. We received one large and began getting monthly checks for around $500. (Note: Why would they back date the effective date of the transfer order?) Also after the fact I realized the division order we singed was incorrect. The divination order said we owned : Oil:1/3 of ¼ OF 1/8 1/3 or 1/8 of 1/8 Oil The county tax assessor said we own: Oil: 1/3,1/2,1/4. Gas & Coal 1/3,1/2.
Q:What do you make of that? Is it too late to fix that?
November 2010, I receive a new lease from Bluestone Energy Partners with a letter stating that they wanted to sign a new lease to help clear up any confusion as to the interest originally owned and that they wanted to drill a horizontal unit. Blue stone stated that some of our mineral rights were passed down through the Trust my grandmother set-up for my mother, Other mineral rights were passed down outside the Trust directly from grandfather, to my mother. (We don’t know what went where.)
Whatever their motive and reasons, we received a new lease. I contacted Bluestone and asked to renegotiate; and that this was defiantly a lease they had sent me. Blue stone said this was more of a formality of organizing the paperwork into a neater stack and that no negotiations were going to take place. I told them I couldn’t sign any such paperwork as I did not agree with it. Bluestone informed me that everything would stay as it was and we would leave it at that.
February 2011, Bluestone Energy Partners has been sold or changed their name to Antero Resources Bluestone LLC, but kept the same address as the former Bluestone. Our royalty checks went from $500 to less than $150 a month
Antero dose have a copy of the original lease my Mom signed back in 2006, but the trustee signature is not along with it. They have not been able to provide a copy of a twice signed lease. If only Mom signed, the contract would be invalid, because the property should have been controlled by the my Grandmas Trust. That is, If they both needed to signed?
I think they should of had 2 signatures and here’s why: Why would blue stone hold back on royalties? Why would they need our signatures in the first place? Why would they only agree to send a bonus check if accompanied with a back dated contract or lease? Why would they wait to drill there horizontal well.
(Of course even after I said I would sign a back dated contract, they never made an offer) ( bluestone claimed money in escrow for the first two years now, they say there is nothing there.) Antero’s Landmen said that they were waiting on our signature to drill a H well. But that could be a ploy also. If that were true Antero would be more motivated.
Anyway, When speaking with Antero they implied that the contract might have been signed by just mother, and was asking something about back dating contracts. I would like to find board certified oil and gas attorney to look into the matter for us and see if there is any further action we might take, such as renegotiate for better terms including bonus check, 15% royalties and the same items we negotiated on our other lease. Do oil and gas attorney ever work on % of contract signed?
We would all like to see this mystery solved, if it can be renegotiated and how much is in the escrow account.
The escrow account maybe a ploy for us to hurry-up and sign so we can get this ??? money.
My grandmas Will, which set up a trust for my Mother. My Uncle (Mom’s Brother) was made the trustee. So, now the question remains Q: whether we have to sign the same contract our Mom signed years ago, or was it “not legal” because only Mom signed and it should have uncles signature also. Also how do we get the division order fixed?
Do we have any grounds for renegotiation? If so how do we prove it? Also yesterday a man called wanting to buy my mineral rights. I don’t want to sell especially if there is money in escrow. But right now I’m not getting anything from Antero.
The land that Antero is sitting on is called Reagan’s Run.400 + acres owned by my WV family and myself my portion is The county tax assessor said we own: Oil: 1/3,1/2,1/4. Gas & Coal 1/3,1/2. Also my sister has an equal portion and we negotiate together. In Doddridge.
Thank you for taking your time I understand that this is a very long letter, and this is a very big mess. I would be so grateful to get an informed opinion on this mess!