Had an incident where someone mistakenly put a pump and moved on our land. He was under the impression that he was in section 12 but was in section 11which was our section. He moved of of our land but the oil pumping rig appears to still be there. Would anyone be able to suggest what I need to do. How could he have gotten a permit for the rig and put it in the wrong section? Another question I have is we bought the land in Fort Stockton Texas about 16 years ago and according to the former owner and the deed we own the mineral rights. We were contacted by a geophysical company that wanted to search for minerals. They claim the mineral rights belong to another company named TRNCO petroleum . Can anyone recommend a good mineral rights attorney to find out if we own the mineral rights or not. I’m able to search for information myself, I’m disabled and spend 90 percent of my time in a medical bed. I am new at this but willing to learn or get an attorney.
To research your minerals, you can look at the deeds backwards through your seller. In other words, find the deed into your seller A from previous owner B. Then find deed into owner B from owner C. You have to look all the way back to sovereignty to see if there was a reservation of minerals by any former owner. Your seller can only give you what he owned - maybe all or maybe only a fraction (such as 1/2 or 1/4) of minerals or maybe no minerals. TRNCO is a geophysical company which conducts seismic testing. So you may have misunderstood what the seismic agent was telling you, i.e. that TRNCO would be conducting the seismic testing. Usually only the surface owner is paid a fee for damages by the testing and the agent may have meant that they were not going to pay a fee to any mineral owner. If you post the legal description, you will get more feedback on that tract - including lease activity around you.
Thanks for the information tennisdaze. Just in case you wanted to know here is the legal description:
S1/2 of the S1/2 of tract 5 out of section 11, Blk 146 T&STL Rwy Co. thanks again, Roblee