First off, I read many pages of forum posts here, read up a little on some terms.....but I am COMPLETELY OUT OF MY LEAGUE HERE.
HERE ARE SOME DETAILS OFF OF THE LEASE THIS COMPANY IS WANTING US TO SIGN.
1. Location: Ritchie county West Virginia
2. Company name: Antero Resources corp
3. 70 acres of land that we have all mineral rights to. The land was sold, but the mineral rights remained with us.......( as it was explained to me by a family member)
4. Mountain Clay District
5. TRID# is 12172
6. they are offering $1.00......seriously "one dollar"
7. There is a large paragraph about "pooling" on this lease.
8. There is mention of 80 acres for oil and 640 acres for gas.
It appears that once we sign off on these rights, they can transfer it to other companies and we could never get it back. There is no mention of a percent or a per acre dollar amount.
Bad thing is ....the rest of the family just signed off. We are the last ones left unsigned and trying to figure this all out. If there is oil and gas under that land.....how is it only worth $1.00 to us?????
I have taken photos of both pages as a .jpg file and added them to this post. If anyone can help us old folks out here....we would greatly appreciate it.
Please help us......we just dont know what to do here.
1571-lease.jpg (274 KB)
1572-leasepage2.jpg (307 KB)
Hey, Dave -
This is not a Lease, it is a Modification of a Lease that appears to have been Held By Production since 1957. Any money that your family received for a Signing Bonus would have been paid back then.
All they want to do is modify the 1957 Lease to include a modern day style Pooling Clause. It's all on the up and up.
Antero is a very good company with an excellent reputation in the industry. You can feel comfortable signing and returning the Modification.
Something you might want to note is that their putting together this type of paperwork indicates that they will be drilling wells in the near future!
Hope this helps -
Charles
Charles Emery Tooke III
Certified Professional Landman
Fort Worth, Texas
If you have not been receiving royalty and that is the reason you know nothing about these rights, the lease may have already expired on it's own terms. If you do not have a copy of the lease, I would get one.
Reading the last paragraph of the lease modification, to me it could be construed that you are leasing for $1 if the original lease has expired. If you adopt, ratify and confirm the original lease, why then would you further have to agree to grant lease and let unto lessee and lessee's assigns? If the original lease were still valid, it would still be binding on you as successor. It could be mere surplus language but I would make sure the original lease was still in effect before I signed anything with that language in it.
A lease can be maintained by other means than production but if production and the lease has been maintained, I would want to know where the royalty is before I sign any new agreement.
In my opinion the present lessee wants a lease modification for something that was not paid for in the original lease, something for $1. To modify a lease should open up negotiations for other things, possibly a greater royalty percentage but I hear they balk at that. At the very least, companies have been known to pay an inconvenience fee, greater than $1.
Dave -
Do you know what USGS Quad your lands are in?
And do you have a map of the property?
Charles
We do not have anything regarding this entire process. It was handed down to us through the death of 2 family members. Yes....they are offering a $500 "inconvenience fee". But we thought....well if you have $500.....why not $5000!! LOL.
Charles Emery Tooke III said:
Dave -
Do you know what USGS Quad your lands are in?
And do you have a map of the property?
Charles
They are offering a $500 inconvenience fee. But if they are soon to be drilling there.....why is it an inconvenience for them to make all that money and we only receive $500. You see......we REALLY don't know what we're doing here. But we are trying to learn. LOL.
r w kennedy said:
If you have not been receiving royalty and that is the reason you know nothing about these rights, the lease may have already expired on it's own terms. If you do not have a copy of the lease, I would get one.
Reading the last paragraph of the lease modification, to me it could be construed that you are leasing for $1 if the original lease has expired. If you adopt, ratify and confirm the original lease, why then would you further have to agree to grant lease and let unto lessee and lessee's assigns? If the original lease were still valid, it would still be binding on you as successor. It could be mere surplus language but I would make sure the original lease was still in effect before I signed anything with that language in it.
A lease can be maintained by other means than production but if production and the lease has been maintained, I would want to know where the royalty is before I sign any new agreement.
In my opinion the present lessee wants a lease modification for something that was not paid for in the original lease, something for $1. To modify a lease should open up negotiations for other things, possibly a greater royalty percentage but I hear they balk at that. At the very least, companies have been known to pay an inconvenience fee, greater than $1.
In the body of the lease modification it is mentioned that the lease is recorded in the courthouse. Get a copy and investigate if the lease is still in effect. If the lease is still producing and you have not been receiving royalty, where is your royalty being held?
When an operator/ lessee wants something from you, they may call you every day and send letters twice a week, once they have what they want, it may be difficult to get them to talk to you. If you have royalty somewhere, get it before you sign anything.
If you have a valid and subsisting lease, you would be entitled to royalty under that lease for future production. I would not make the assumption that the lease is valid and subsisting, verify it.
Wells can produce for long periods of time but over 50 years time elapsed is long enough that I would check, unless you are receiving royalty.
Once again I would not sign a lease modification that says "furthermore, that I grant, lease and let for $1". If the lease is valid and subsisting they don't need that, if the lease is not valid and subsisting, I don't want to lease for $1.
Dave Hayslip said:
They are offering a $500 inconvenience fee. But if they are soon to be drilling there.....why is it an inconvenience for them to make all that money and we only receive $500. You see......we REALLY don't know what we're doing here. But we are trying to learn. LOL.
r w kennedy said:
If you have not been receiving royalty and that is the reason you know nothing about these rights, the lease may have already expired on it's own terms. If you do not have a copy of the lease, I would get one.
Reading the last paragraph of the lease modification, to me it could be construed that you are leasing for $1 if the original lease has expired. If you adopt, ratify and confirm the original lease, why then would you further have to agree to grant lease and let unto lessee and lessee's assigns? If the original lease were still valid, it would still be binding on you as successor. It could be mere surplus language but I would make sure the original lease was still in effect before I signed anything with that language in it.
A lease can be maintained by other means than production but if production and the lease has been maintained, I would want to know where the royalty is before I sign any new agreement.
In my opinion the present lessee wants a lease modification for something that was not paid for in the original lease, something for $1. To modify a lease should open up negotiations for other things, possibly a greater royalty percentage but I hear they balk at that. At the very least, companies have been known to pay an inconvenience fee, greater than $1.
Dave -
Be careful that you don't negotiate yourself out of the unit. I don't know about West Virginia, but in some States oil and gas companies can reshape their proposed unit to leave difficult landowners out.
Make sure the lease from 1957 is valid and subsisting.
If there has been production for the last 50 years, find out where the royalty went.
If the 1957 lease is not valid and subsisting, don't sign the modification.
If the 1957 lease is valid and subsisting, you will probably be signing the modification.
If the 1957 lease is valid and subsisting and you do not sign the modification, you will most likely face a partition suit. From what I hear, Antero would not be satisfied with just leaving you out of a new unit.
If you didn't hear from family that they all signed, it may not be so. One of the oldest tricks in the book is telling you that everyone else has already signed and you are the only holdout. Everyone else may have been told the same thing. My brother fell for that once, it was pure luck I found out in time to stop him.
Verify everything.
If you can send me a more exact legal description, I can look up what wells are in the area that might effect your lands. I can't tell where you are from the legal description given and there are thousands of wells in Richie County.
