I have been in negations with a land company & Chesapeake regarding leasing mineral interest in Carter County for a year and a half. The mineral interest is currently in probate (I am the executor) and the land company has made me jump through every imaginable hoop possible. As of late they seem to be avoiding me as my calls and emails go unanswered.
This week I received checks from Chesapeake for pooling in the section they want to lease. Being pretty much a novice I'm not exactly sure what this means and how does receiving these checks affect the leasing with Chesapeake if/when the land company finally decides to be honest & up front with me?
I would say to err on the side of caution, if anywhere and accept no payment until you have a contract.
I'm assuming that you are in Carter Co, OK.
If so, you may have been pooled by OCC. Since you are in probate, your lawyer should have received a notices from OCC on a pooling hearing. At that time, Chesapeake could ask that all land not leased be pooled. If that happened, you will probably only get 1/8 and OCC will set the bonus price. You can call OCC and ask if your land has been pooled if you have the legals. Then I would ask your lawyer if he got a notices of a hearing.
If the owner of record has been pooled and there was an order there is nothing you can do and there will be no negotiations, it's all over now. If the interest was pooled then look at the pooling order to see what the interest gets in the pooling order. If you would have written some information like legal description any one here could have looked it up for you. I don't know why everyone thinks their legal description is a secret.
Joe, It is 6-1S-3W OCC case number 20110699
There is another thread on the subject in the Carter county group.
The issue I see is that there are election that can be made for a time after the pooling orders are issues.
I think in this case it was $350 1/8, $300 3/16, $0 1/4. As executor of the estate he shuold have had the option to choose for the estate even if payment is still being held. Since the election time has passed he may be stock with the default 1/8 RI. I would be trying to get that reversed if he was not notified correctly to elect an option more favorable for the owner. I disagree with the OCC for making the 1/8 the default option in this case regardless.