My Great Grandfather retained mineral rights to property he owned in New Mexico. My understanding is after he passed his rights passed onto his children, then when they died, the rights continued to pass down to each sibling.
My mom passed a couple years ago, she leased the property once and I think only received 1 royalty check back ion the 1990’s for 1500.00. Divide that by 5 and a royalty might be 300,00 for me. Not cost effective to pay for a lawyer.
Last summer I was contacted by a firm wanting to lease the rights. Since I am not familiar with the leasing particulars I did not follow up. Basically they wanted a 3 year lease, automatically renewable for perpetuity. I was not comfortable with that.. Recently they have contacted my sister with the same lease questions. We are at a loss as to what to do.
I don’t know how the inheritance works with the rights. I haven’t claimed anything in New Mexico. My mom died without a will so I assume the rights automatically fall to me and my siblings.
I also heard from a relative who received a certified letter from the same company stating to sign the letter if they wanted to participate, and each participant would be responsible for a portion of the drilling costs. She is worried said company is going to come to collect a large sum to pay for drilling she can’t afford.
Any info or a direction to go would be helpful.
Thanks, rocketman