My father and his siblings inherited land in Texas from their parents. He sold his land to his sister who purchased the land from all siblings (no documentation of sale). His sister passed away several years ago leaving the land to her son. We recently discovered the mineral rights were still in my grandfathers name. More recently we discovered the mineral rights were transferred and put in our cousins name (now owner of property). How can this happen without notification to grandparents heirs? We were told when the land was sold it did not include mineral rights. Do the heirs have a claim?
Let's see if we can help you out. Sister may have unrecorded deed? Son possible heir or beneficiary of sister.
Min. rights still in grandfather being a direct contradiction of father and siblings inheriting. Did grandfather die without a will? They may still be in his name because no one ever filed an Affidavit of Heirship. Transferred to cousins from who?
You have presented some facts which seem to contradict as they go along.
If your aunt in fact bought everyone out, and the siblings did not reserve any of the mineral rights, the son of aunt may own them. He can still record the deed if he has one.
From there on out, you need to get more specific, or no one can answer your question. Some may think that they can, but based on the information that you provided, it isn't even possible.
At best, someone may be able to lay out different scenarios for you, but not really tell you anything.
You need to clarify it. Who transferred the mineral rights to your cousins? What did the deed say?
What seller and buyer were involved when you were told that it did not include mineral rights?
When was this particular transaction?
Son is heir and according to her will received the land. He filed a special warranty deed using a lawyer.
Regarding grandparents will, as far as we know they did not have a will. All of the siblings and their spouses have passed away. We have not visited the court to view records yet but found online that for several years the records have shown our aunt as the owner of “real property” last year that changed to our cousin as the owner of “real property and mineral rights”.
I guess the question is how could the mineral rights owned by our grandfather (which was never transferred into our aunt’s name) now be listed with cousin as owner without notification of family?
Our mother told us before she died that the mineral rights were not sold with the land back in the early 60’s when the grandparents died. Again, we don’t know if in fact the sale is documented.
All I can do for you is take it from the top, and give you a few different scenarios or possible ways that it could play out. Only a fool would give you unqualified advice without having read anything himself.
Grandparents die. Now owned by dad and his siblings.
Issue: Did siblings ever convey to aunt both surface and minerals? That needs to be resolved.
If they did, and son/cousin has unrecorded deed, and siblings did not reserve any minerals, and son/cousin files that deed, then he will be the record owner of surface and minerals.
If there was no formal transfer of ownership by deed into the aunt from the siblings, the cousin can not be the legal owner of the property as against the other heirs.
In a nutshell, it has to be determined if the aunt acquired any of the interests of the rest of the siblings. If so, what interest? Surface only? Minerals? Surface and minerals?
In your first posting, you indicated that the aunt is believed to have bought out the other siblings, but not documented. The Statute of Frauds, derived from English common law, requires all transactions involving real property to be in writing. Therefore, it is key that you determine, once and for all, whether there were any written deeds into your aunt, and what those deeds actually conveyed.
Until you do that, any further reply would just be based on conjecture and speculation.