Lease advice needed, newbie

I tried the PA forum section and there’s really not much going on there but I’ve been offered a lease for my 50% of 58 acres in Jefferson township, Fayette county, PA for 15% royalties and $1000 per acre lease bonus for a 10 year lease with a 5 year renewal and really could use some advice, I really could use the money that they are offering but I’m worried that I could end up costing myself a lot more by not really knowing what it’s worth or the going rate. I can’t afford to pay for an attorney or anything so I’m hoping that maybe someone here might be willing to bestow some very needed information and advice on the matter as they sent me a lease (received on Friday,) and they wanted it back in the mail by Tuesday, I’m getting quite a bit of pressure on this and don’t want to lose out, any assistance would be greatly appreciated

Hopefully PA folks will step up to help. Anyone who pushes me like that brings out my stubborn streak and red flags…

Don’t know if it pertinent but they were searching for us for over a year, me an aunt I’ve never met inherited these rights, and he said that they were just a week or two from giving up hope of locating us, I don’t know if that means that they were just gunna give up on it or file some legal action to go ahead with what ever plans they had

If you just inherited, you will have to file probate documents in the county. With a ten year lease, they are not in a hurry to drill. They just want to tie up your acreage.

Search for the Pennsylvania Oil and Gas Commission (not sure of their exact title) and see if they have a GIS map of your area. See if there is drilling nearby.

Go to Mineralwise.com for very informative, easy to understand guidelines on how to handle lease agreements: what TO do and what NOT to do. One thing they strongly suggest is to be patient and NOT to sign anything immediately. Also, the site recommends you start snooping, google names, how much your area is getting, etc. I myself almost signed for $3000 an acre until I found out people were getting 4 to 5K per acre. So investigate and be patient. And check out that website!

Well I ended up signing a lease but now it seems that they are trying to back out of it

It is very important to never hand over a lease without getting paid. It is likely that the group wanted to flip the lease and could not find a buyer, so they don’t want to pay you out of their own money.