My husband inherited mineral rights on an old farm from his uncle many years ago and never pursued anything with it as there was several heirs in it at that time. now 7 of 8 want to let landman drill again and check out the existing 3 wells that used to have oil in them. Problem number one is the 8th person. is it true that drilling can begin and her part put in escrow? Number 2 can new property owner keep the man from drilling on the land. Everytime he goes to the place to drill this owner threatens him and makes him leave. Has been to local sheriffs office who didnt want to deal with this ..any solutions????????
If there has not been production for years there is a fair chance that the leases have expired. If I owned the farm surface and someone came up and wanted to do some exploring in some old wells he would have to show me something to convince me to let him in. Are you sure the old leases are in effect and or that there are new leases? Are you sure you are dealing with the right person? It sounds strange that the sherrif does not want to get involved, maybe the "landman" does not have the right to enter? If I had the right to enter and someone was trying to keep me out I think I would be seeing a judge and I would guess that the judge would talk to the sherrif and then the sherrif might see his way clear to assist me, if I really had the right to be there. Has this "landman" paid you any money?
i know that 2 wells pumped for years up until his uncle died.He had 1 daughter who never wanted them pumped again and she is the one that is against everyone else and the others never thought much about the mineral rights. THe man who bought this farm knew that mineral rights belonged to other people.Its new leases.
r w kennedy said:
If there has not been production for years there is a fair chance that the leases have expired. If I owned the farm surface and someone came up and wanted to do some exploring in some old wells he would have to show me something to convince me to let him in. Are you sure the old leases are in effect and or that there are new leases? Are you sure you are dealing with the right person? It sounds strange that the sherrif does not want to get involved, maybe the "landman" does not have the right to enter? If I had the right to enter and someone was trying to keep me out I think I would be seeing a judge and I would guess that the judge would talk to the sherrif and then the sherrif might see his way clear to assist me, if I really had the right to be there. Has this "landman" paid you any money?
no no money has been paid. THe county we live in most of the officials are related in some way or other. Even went to talk to county attorney few months back and this daughter has already been to see him and he had the family tree laid out on paper. LOL. Come to find out his niece married this womans grand daughter. So although he is not to side with anyone HE did. He was telling us how much interest she had in the rights and that one side or the other needed to buy it out. No solution there.
Ms. Routin, have you read any of the leases? In most leases it states that the lease will be in effect as long thereafter as oil and gas are produced. There is also usually a continuing operations clause that allows the lease to stay in effect as long as continuous operation to restore production do not cease for longer than, 60, 90, 180 days which are common timeframes. If the production has ceased years ago and no continuous effort had been made to restore or gain new production in a couple of years, I would consider it highly likely that the lease/s had expired. That under the old expired leases the "landman" has no right to enter the premises.
Carolyn Routin said:
the leases are still in effect i believe from research i know that 2 wells pumped for years up until his uncle died.He had 1 daughter who never wanted them pumped again and she is the one that is against everyone else and the others never thought much about the mineral rights. THe man who bought this farm knew that mineral rights belonged to other people.
r w kennedy said:
Ms. Routin, have you read any of the leases? In most leases it states that the lease will be in effect as long thereafter as oil and gas are produced. There is also usually a continuing operations clause that allows the lease to stay in effect as long as continuous operation to restore production do not cease for longer than, 60, 90, 180 days which are common timeframes. If the production has ceased years ago and no continuous effort had been made to restore or gain new production in a couple of years, I would consider it highly likely that the lease/s had expired. That under the old expired leases the "landman" has no right to enter the premises.
Carolyn Routin said:the leases are still in effect i believe from research i know that 2 wells pumped for years up until his uncle died.He had 1 daughter who never wanted them pumped again and she is the one that is against everyone else and the others never thought much about the mineral rights. THe man who bought this farm knew that mineral rights belonged to other people.
r w kennedy said:Ms. Routin, have you read any of the leases? In most leases it states that the lease will be in effect as long thereafter as oil and gas are produced. There is also usually a continuing operations clause that allows the lease to stay in effect as long as continuous operation to restore production do not cease for longer than, 60, 90, 180 days which are common timeframes. If the production has ceased years ago and no continuous effort had been made to restore or gain new production in a couple of years, I would consider it highly likely that the lease/s had expired. That under the old expired leases the "landman" has no right to enter the premises.
Carolyn Routin said:the leases are still in effect i believe from research i know that 2 wells pumped for years up until his uncle died.He had 1 daughter who never wanted them pumped again and she is the one that is against everyone else and the others never thought much about the mineral rights. THe man who bought this farm knew that mineral rights belonged to other people.
I tried to edit my response earlier this is new leases. thank you for your input as you can see I dont know a lot about the mineral rights .. Why I wanted to come on here and get answers from people who know and I thank you
Carolyn Routin said:
r w kennedy said:Ms. Routin, have you read any of the leases? In most leases it states that the lease will be in effect as long thereafter as oil and gas are produced. There is also usually a continuing operations clause that allows the lease to stay in effect as long as continuous operation to restore production do not cease for longer than, 60, 90, 180 days which are common timeframes. If the production has ceased years ago and no continuous effort had been made to restore or gain new production in a couple of years, I would consider it highly likely that the lease/s had expired. That under the old expired leases the "landman" has no right to enter the premises.
Carolyn Routin said:the leases are still in effect i believe from research i know that 2 wells pumped for years up until his uncle died.He had 1 daughter who never wanted them pumped again and she is the one that is against everyone else and the others never thought much about the mineral rights. THe man who bought this farm knew that mineral rights belonged to other people.
Ok, ther must be quite a bit going on here that I don't know anything about, and I'm not talking about small town politics, I've seen plenty of that. It doesn't bother me that you have received no money for your lease unless your were supposed to be paid a bonus? If you were supposed to be paid a bonus or rentals and were not paid, that would bother me. There are alot of people out there trying to capitalize on peoples mineral rights for no money down and if anyone loses, it's the mineral owners. In theory your lease could be used as collateral to get a loan by the "landman".
Hi, Carolyn -
I am not an oil and gas attorney, but it is my understanding that the only way the surface owner can stop the owners of the oil and gas rights from entering onto the property would be if he (the surface owner) owned the rights of "ingress and egress" with regards to the mineral interests. Those rights, however, are usually reserved or conveyed with the mineral rights.
If the Mineral Owners hold the rights of ingress and egress and have leased the land, the company that owns the new Leases or their representatives (such as their Landmen) can come and go as they please, so long as they do not interfere with daily operations on the land and that sort of thing. Always polite to call ahead, too.
Nobody wants to start a Range War, but if the surface owner is being obstinate and making threats, then it's off to Court they'll go. And so long as the new Leases are legit, the surface owner will never win there. If the local courts are full of family, the company will just kick it up to a higher court and the surface owner will end up with having to pay every attorney involved on either side.
And, in answer to your first question, any unleased interests would in essence become a partner in the drilling. They will be given the opportunity to put up their share of the costs for the drilling of each well and all the pre and post production expenses or to elect to go "non-participatory", wherein the drilling company covers their share of the expenses, but subject to at least a 200% penalty.
There is, of course, more to it than that. Faced with everything involved, most hold out interest owners end up leasing in the end.
Hope this helps -
Charles
Charles Emery Tooke III
Certified Professional Landman
Fort Worth, Texas
Thanks Charles for your reply. We are going to talk to an attorney on Monday. Yes the people that own the farm now are being really bad and wanting to fight the landman, so he just leaves the guy alone. We live in a small town and most officials are connected someway. Even the county attornery went to this landman when he was starting to look at places to drill and told him he had no right on that property even with the lease in his hands. So we have no choice but to go to attornery in another town and pursue it from there. Your infor was very appreciative. We know nothing much about all this stuff so we are just learning lol. I know there was 2 wells that pumped for a few years until his uncle passed and he left the mineral rights to his nephews. That has been several years ago, due to so many heirs noone done anything with it. But in the area of these wells people have pumps going and thats when we were contacted about it. Not many people in it now since they too have passed on. But once again thanks for you input.
Surprised that the county attorney does not have a better understanding of the law than to dispute a proper lease.
Please let us know the outcome.
Carolyn -
The only issue I can see from here is that you need to determine whether or not the Uncle acquired or reserved the rights of ingress and egress (roughly, "to enter on to and to take away from") with the minerals. That would be found in whatever document he acquired or reserved the mineral interests in (and possibly effected by prior title).
If the Uncle did, and then left or conveyed the mineral interests and rights of ingress and egress to the nephews, then the County Attorney was either terribly misinformed or letting his family influence his actions - something you might want to keep that in mind when the next election rolls around.
I'm not clear on why you are contacting an Attorney. Seems to me that that might just serve to drive more wedges between already estranged family members.
It's really the Oil and Gas Company's issue - let them handle it. That might be a whole lot less expensive to you in the long run in more ways than one.
Hope your team wins!
Charles
Yes, drilling can begin without the one person's lease, in which case that person is basically treated as a partner with the producer, getting 100% of profits on the well but only after what's called "payout," the point at which the well pays for itself, AND only after a very sizeable penalty for not having leased in the first place. Often, after payout and penalty, the remaining "profit" is so small that the "hold out" usually receives much less money than if he had just gone ahead and leased in the first place.
Also what can happen is a hold-out mineral owner with a small interest on a tract of land refuses to lease while the rest of his family does; so the Lessee just decides to leave the entire tract of land out of the drilling unit. Therefore, the one relative who held out basically screwed his other relatives who had the good sense to lease, because now NOBODY from the family will get ANY royalty payments whatsoever!