In the many and myriad avenues, channels, and alleyways, through which I have travelled to rebuild my family trust estate and turn it into a viable source of income for myself and my loved ones I have only had experience with a single receivership, and the parameter and boundaries of this Receivership were very well defined:
There was a Lawsuit filed, and a receivership was setup to confiscate the records and properties of the Defendant for disbursal once compensation was provided to the Plaintiff. Not I contacted the Attorney assigned as receiver and they were cooperative, but alas the Defendants absconded with my records before they could be confiscated... No big deal.
My question is whether States, Counties, or Oil & Gas Companies set up receiverships in a similar fashion to hold on to funds for whom the owners cannot be located? If so, how would one go about locating information concerning who and or how to contact the Receivership for any given Entity (State, County, Company) and start the process of providing documentation to have one's funds being held in receivership released?
Can this be done at all?
Are there any online resources that provide information on how these issues are handled, or is there any insight anyone might be able to provide?
I ask because I was recently informed that a receivership has been set up in Karnes County which is currently having funds channeled through it from multiple Entities as a means of holding the interest owners shares without being directly responsible for claiming the money and to avoid it being re-distributed into new projects by oversight (or so I gathered from a vague and brief conversation so forgive those aspects of what I say that are complete nonsense). I have several unrecorded interests in Karnes several of which I know for a fact currently have production on them and some of which have had production in the last few years.
Once I get everything updated and manage to record certified copies of assignments and chain of title, I would like to be able to resolve getting our held accounts released in as brief a time as possible (lol!).
Any help, as always, is greatly appreciated.
Mathew
" If so, how would one go about locating information concerning who and or how to contact the Receivership for any given Entity (State, County, Company) and start the process of providing documentation to have one's funds being held in receivership released?"
An overview of the Texas receivership statutes is located here:
http://www.dallasbar.org/sites/default/files/dallas_bar_association...
Since you mention Karnes (County), in Texas -- the court appoints a receiver for the missing or unknown heirs of the last mineral owner of record. The lawsuit for the receivership lease will be located in the District Court records.
A Receivership Lease is granted and said lease is filed of record in the Official Public Records of the particular Texas county where the property is located. Many times the Receiver is the County Clerk. Read the lease for the answer.
Locate the appropriate lease and contact the receiver and potentially the attorney ad litem who represented the interests of the missing or unknown heirs. I would also determine the amount of money involved. I would likely hire a good title attorney to help in perfecting title into my name.
Can you find what you are looking for? Sure. The lease has been filed of record. Find the lease and go forward from there.
Best,
Buddy Cotten
Hello Buddy,
You are ever the font of knowledge... Seriously, Thank you. I had suspected as much, but it is always nice to be given clear and articulate answers to my question: That I need to be looking into District Court Records for Receivership Leases. Simple enough in theory :)
As an aside, Can you recommend any online resources I could access District Court documentation for a decent portion of the State Districts? I assume Something like PACER or the County Online records might be the best places to start (or at least that's where I will start).
Also, I have studied running chain of title and compilation of Title Opinion some through online resources, and have a few examples of Title Opinion for our interests that my Grandfather put together. So, would a title attorney really be necessary, or is it generally just a good idea to have a legal representative prepare the documentation (my grandfather was a lawyer so he prepared his own...)?
Thanks again for the insight,
Mathew Love
Hi, Mathew -
It's been a while. See you are still hard at it.
Some District Courts are tied into online websites that allow for access to District and maybe even County Court Records, but not many. Especially not the more rural Counties - they just don't have the funds.
I'll ask around and see if anyone I know knows of a website for District Court Records in Karnes County and let you know, but you may have to either contact the Court and see if they can help you or drive down to Karnes County and see them personally.
Either that or hire a Landman!
Hope this helps -
Charles Emery Tooke III
Certified Professional Landman
Fort Worth, Texas
Thanks, Buddy, for that information. We in California are WAY behind the times in this area. If you cannot locate a mineral owner you either decide not to drill if that mineral interest is too great or, if it is smaller, then you take the risk, drill the well, and set aside the money that would be the equivalent of the royalty in hopes that if the mineral owner shows up you can lease them rather than them saying that they want to be treated as a co-working interest owner.
I am preparing a lot of dormant mineral rights quiet title actions which is one of the very few ways we have to get the surface owner to "take back" the dormant mineral rights (recognizing that here in California we think of mineral rights more like an easement and do not treat this right as an ownership of the hydrocarbons in the ground). Again, thanks for the treatise. It helped expand my knowledge of Texas law.
Jean
Hello Charles,
Yessir, I am still working away at this project... It's hard to believe that I first posted on this forum a little over a year ago... :)
Thank you for checking this out... let me know if you hear anything about any online resources for Karnes County District Court Records.
On the PACER Website there is a very large amount of Court Documentation which you can run a general search through, as well as links to the Individual District Court Websites which the PACER system can be used to search through, found here: https://www.pacer.gov/psco/cgi-bin/links.pl
Notice that for Texas there are Four District Courts to search through: Eastern, Western, Northern, or Southern. Not sure of what District Karnes is located in I went to the Karnes County website,and under the District Court Quicklinks tab, the following link is provided for the 81st & 218th District Court: http://www.81st-218thdistrictcourt.org that doesn't include any form of searchable database of documentation... Lol. Luckily there is contact information (emails, phone numbers, etc.) a plenty, so I may end up making some phone calls and sending some emails :)
As always, I appreciate y'alls help.Mathew Love
No, you misread my answer to your question.
You look in the County Court Records for Receivership leases. You look in the District Court Records for the lawsuit against the unknown heirs. If you have heir names, then run them to www.texasfile.com or similar websites. You can also pay to have it done.
As to having a title attorney involved. Do it yourself if you are competent to deraign title into your ownership. The chain of title will need to meet the scrutiny of the court and the oil company before funds are released.
Best,
Buddy Cotten
Mathew Brandon Love-Waraksa said:
Hello Buddy,
You are ever the font of knowledge... Seriously, Thank you. I had suspected as much, but it is always nice to be given clear and articulate answers to my question: That I need to be looking into District Court Records for Receivership Leases. Simple enough in theory :)
As an aside, Can you recommend any online resources I could access District Court documentation for a decent portion of the State Districts? I assume Something like PACER or the County Online records might be the best places to start (or at least that's where I will start).
Also, I have studied running chain of title and compilation of Title Opinion some through online resources, and have a few examples of Title Opinion for our interests that my Grandfather put together. So, would a title attorney really be necessary, or is it generally just a good idea to have a legal representative prepare the documentation (my grandfather was a lawyer so he prepared his own...)?
Thanks again for the insight,
Mathew Love
Mathew -
I believe Pacer is for Federal Bankruptcy Court Records, not District Court Records. There is at least one District Court for each County.
Thank you for the clarification Buddy, I have an account on Texas file and I have become pretty good at using it, so I will begin running the names I have unrecorded (I'm going to run the recorded names too, because they were only recorded recently) in Karnes County to see if I can find any Receivership Leases today.
Charles, PACER has documentation for both Bankruptcy Courts and District Courts Records, but the District Court Records aren't sorted by County... I've emailed their support contact and they said they would send me a brief overview of what documentation is actually recorded... I'll update the post once I'm notified, just for the sake of posterity.
Hopefully, I can track down the Receivership Lease online...
Mathew Love
Cool Beans! I look forward to hearing more about Pacer.
Receivership Leases are typically signed by the County Clerk, after having been appointed Receiver on behalf of mineral owners that can't be located. Sometimes there are dozens of mineral owners listed in the lease.
The Court Cases appointing them are left open until the mineral owners come forward and prove who they are, which sometimes takes years. The Receiver then releases the funds to the mineral owners (as they come forward).
If you have access to District Court Records, see if you can search the word "Receivership". I would imagine every County has a number of them.
I suppose a County Court could handle Receivership cases as well, so I'd check those records as well.
Receivership leases usually require a hearing in District Court. It is typically considered to be an adversarial proceeding. An attorney is usually appointed to represent the missing heirs, and usually will cross-examine the oil company representative as to those steps taken by them to locate those heirs who have an interest in the land they are trying to lease. The lease is usually signed by the Receiver appointed by the court, if granted. If a good faith effort is demonstrated by the prospective lessee to locate the missing heir and/or heirs in the adversarial hearing, the judge will usually sign the required paper authorizing the Receivership Lease.
As was stated earlier, the lease itself will be filed in the Office of County Clerk, but not before the adversarial hearing in District Court.
Thanks for the info Dave... I'm still waiting to hear back from the PACER Rep on how to navigate a search of their document records according to District Courts, and how their system breaks up District Courts with respect to County. So every bit of insight will help me to better determine what to search for once I get a response back.
In the meantime I have been searching through TexasFile and a few other online County record websites to try to find the Receivership Lease itself.
My main roadblock is that the County Records through these platforms don't make any references to "Receivership" Leases at all... I've found a couple of these where the Lessee is labeled as "Public" (which I'm not sure whether or not that might reference the County Clerk or is designation for something else), but none with "County Clerk" or the name of the Karnes County Clerk under the Lessee heading...
It's all very interesting learning about the legal process by which the money for unpaid interest owners is channeled.
Mathew
I thought about that same issue. One suggestion might be to back in. If you knew the primary lessee of a given survey, you could run that company reverse and look for a receivership type style of the lessor/grantor into that company. You may not know that though. You were advised that the county clerk is the likely receiver, but it may not be. That's not a given. A Receivership Lease is not really a separate category. It's still an Oil & Gas Lease that happens to be taken from a Receiver.
Concerning unpaid interest owners, the court not only (or the attorney ad litem, or both) quizzes the landman/expert as to what steps were taken to find the unknown owners, but also publishes a notice in the official journal of the county (that would generally be a newspaper of general distribution who has been set as the official repository for legal notices).
The money is deposited with the registry of the court. What more can they do?
To run lessee's name in reverse would take a long time. My suggestion was that if you have a list of ancestors, run their names. The number of people would be much shorter to review.
I have no further information. You have received enough information to confuse anyone.
Mathew Brandon Love-Waraksa said:
Thanks for the info Dave... I'm still waiting to hear back from the PACER Rep on how to navigate a search of their document records according to District Courts, and how their system breaks up District Courts with respect to County. So every bit of insight will help me to better determine what to search for once I get a response back.
In the meantime I have been searching through TexasFile and a few other online County record websites to try to find the Receivership Lease itself.
My main roadblock is that the County Records through these platforms don't make any references to "Receivership" Leases at all... I've found a couple of these where the Lessee is labeled as "Public" (which I'm not sure whether or not that might reference the County Clerk or is designation for something else), but none with "County Clerk" or the name of the Karnes County Clerk under the Lessee heading...
It's all very interesting learning about the legal process by which the money for unpaid interest owners is channeled.
Mathew
Mathew,
What should be clear or easy doesn't always work out that way. I don't think anyone is trying to confuse you. It goes more to the reality as to how things are filed of record sometime.
First, you were advised that the County Clerk was the most likely Receiver. You seemed to infer from that, that the Karnes County Clerk may be the lessor, and tried to index it that way accordingly. That may be a total waste of time in that someone else may have been appointed the receiver, and not the county clerk.
Quite often, a particular lessee has a prospective area limited to a few surveys, and is not trying to shot-gun the entire county.
I helped someone just a few weeks ago on this site named Cyndy, and was thanked profusely. She knew the name of the lessee, and I was able to find the GLO (General Land Office) leases in about two or three minutes by running (indexing) the lessee reverse or indirect. Contrary to what you are advised, that is often the best and most efficient way to tackle it. It took me less than five minutes to find the leases in question.
I see what you are trying to do. It may just be one of those things that is very easy for a pro, but very difficult for someone who is not used to running records.
Unfortunately, some of the advice you have received makes assumptions regarding the style of the lease, the manner in which the deputy clerk may have chosen to file it in a subjective, possibly incorrect or confusing data entry, etc. etc. It may or may not have been filed or indexed flagging the names of the heirs.
Regarding the names of the heirs, I thought that you would have done that already. It seemed too obvious to mention.
Try indexing the name of the attorney who you write was named the receiver.
Mathew -
I just went back and re-read your original posting and noticed that you wrote:
"I have several unrecorded interests in Karnes several of which I know for a fact currently have production on them and some of which have had production in the last few years.
"Once I get everything updated and manage to record certified copies of assignments and chain of title, I would like to be able to resolve getting our held accounts released in as brief a time as possible..."
If you know the legal descriptions of the subject interests, contact the Karnes Land Title Company in Karnes City, Tx at 830-780-2221.
An Abstract or Title Company's Records are organized by legal description, not by names like the County Clerk's Records are. They should be able to locate your purported Receivership Lease(s) quite quickly.
Hope this helps -
Charles
But beware, Abstract company employees will be reluctant to research anything for you remotely. You may have to go there, and pay an expensive hourly fee to use their records. I can assure you that it will not be free.
Try the free advice first. Then you may have to go to Karnes County, and pull out all of the stops by using the records in the Karnes County District Clerk, Karnes County Clerk, and pay to use the Karnes Land Title Company.
Bear in mind, however, there is still a chance you may strike out, due to the fact that you don't know all of the tricks of the trade.
Or, you could hire a Landman!
Tee Hee.