Some on this forum seem to have trouble getting their money before the 'new owner' records their new rights with the county clerk.
The flip side of that coin ( a smaller problem???) is mineral rights that were sold several years ago and are not YET recorded. With activity in northeast Colorado heating up, we are now receiving a steady stream of inquiries to lease our "former" rights. Our several notifications to the new owner over the last 18 months has changed nothing. The new owner is in-state and not dead; we have talked (we are out-of-state).
We received our money before we signed the sale of the rights and thought everything was done. We are now ready to start to ignore all future inquiries, of course. Still, this does not seem very TIDY.
(1) With no surface rights, I assume we face no liability concerns as a listed owner. True?
(2) A few years down the road, our estate will be probated and we don't want Uncle Sam to think we own more than we do. I assume leaving the bill of sale (and, perhaps, our affidavit declaring the sale) with our family attorney should suffice for this small tax question. Correct assumption?
(3) Worst case senario: The new owner has dementia, kept no records, and will NEVER record anything with the county clerk. We don't want this moderately small mineral right even to defaullt back to us. We want to be clear of this mess. Does it matter???
(4) If we are eventually regarded as 'unreachable owners', can we just ignore whatever those court actions are??
(5) Anything else we should address?