I was told today by a landman in Midland texas, that possibly our mineral rights exclude any royalty and may be limited to our ability to negotiate a lease of the minerals. Is that possible, or maybe better question, how likely or widespread practice is this? His explanation is that we are limited to the bonus money, but can be excluded from the royalties. Seemed odd to think about and is most certainly NOT what I wanted to hear. Any thoughts ?? p.s. He’s interested in buying our minerals
If you only owned the executive rights and not the minerals themselves, I would not be in a big hurry to sell because I think only the mineral owners would be paid. I agree you need to do alot more research. I would start with the deed/s that created your interest. The landman may scan and e-mail you the relevent documents if you ask and if not you can tell him it is a condition of continuing to do business
Mr Kennedy thank you for your response. The idea that we owned something or anything less than the COMPLETE mineral interest would have never entered my mind. Since we were asked to lease what we were told were OUR minerals through inheritance and shown a royalty interest at 25% we assumed they belonged to us. I suppose then that it is very possible to not own all the royalty relative to your acreage. Only to own the right to lease them. Am I understanding this correctly? Again, this just makes me wonder how common this is? I guess what I’m asking is, is this rare? Or a fairly common situation ?
I don't think having the executive rights alone is very common. I would withhold judgement on what you do or do not own until you see any relevent deeds.
There is what is called the bundle of sticks to land ownership, mineral rights being one of them unless the rights have been severed. The same goes for severed mineral rights. You could have the executive right alone and not even receive bonus. You could have the executive rights and receive bonus but no royalty because you have no ownership in the minerals themselves. I would wait and see what the deed says, you may actually own part or all of the minerals themselves, or possibly have some other interest than ownership in the minerals, despite what you have been told. Landmen say the most amazing things sometimes.
Thanks for your insight. As the saying goes " it is what it is ". Our job now seems to be getting a definitive answer about our minerals. Probably not as easy a task I did like it to be, and in the end may not get the answer we want to hear. I appreciate the help given here it’s been interesting and very informative. Though having ownership since 1996 this is really our first time learning about what we have here. Our previous lease paid a bonus (175nma), we were happy to receive it, but silence since that time. Now the bonuses are 10 times that and THE EXCITEMENT IS BACK!