We need some help. My three daughters, two of them minors, one 24 years old, were told by their now deceased grandmother that they would inherit oil rights to property in Oklahoma. My oldest girl asked her uncle about this after gramma died two years ago. He told her that he would take care of securing royalties for them and asked her to provide social security numbers for herself and her sisters. We haven't heard any more from him and it has been two years now. We suspect fraud, based on this and some other matters, but don't know how to research whether they had, in fact, inherited mineral rights and what happened to them. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.
Depending on the county and when it may have transferred, you may be able to search online
Need a few more specifics.
Unfortunately, I only know that the state where the property is located is Oklahoma. The Uncle who may have made a fraudulent claim lives in Phoenix, AZ, if that helps. The time frame would be the last few years. Thanks.
Michael,
When a company drills in Oklahoma and cannot locate an owner, the company must place into escrow that person's money. After a certain period of time, the company must deposit the money with the Oklahoma Corporations Commission. You can search there at http://www.occeweb.com/MOEAsearch/index.aspx. After a certain amount of time with the OCC, the money goes to the state unclaimed property office, which you can search at https://www.ok.gov/unclaimed/index.php. In both cases, I would search under your daughters' names as well as their grandmother's name. If you don't find anything, you may want to try some alternate spellings.
He'd have no need for their SS#'s at all so it was probably asked for show like he is really doing something. Also, the properties might not be or have ever produced or been drilled on so start with the county for the town in which the Grandmother or her relatives lived at some time and just keep narrowing it down.
I would start at the County Clerks office at the County Courthouse and get a copy of your grandmother's will. I'm not in Oklahoma and it's been a while since I was actually doing work in numerous states.
Per Michael J. Zwick's reply - I've found that oil and gas companies do not necessarily follow the law. I'm trying to track down where my great uncle's money has been going for the last 14 years and I can tell you - none of it was escheated to the State of Texas - as per law. This makes it extremely hard to clean up a mess. At least yours isn't that old so you should be able to track it down much easier.
Katherine-In Texas, when a company cannot locate MR owners within a pooling order, it must initiate a court action. The court is then to appoint a trustee on their behalves to negotiate the leases and collect the bonus and royalty payments. The trustee is usually the court clerk, a judge or a local attorney. We just recovered $250,000 for a client from such an account in Limestone County, Texas.
Michael J. Zwick
How/where can I find out if a court action was initiated and who was appointed as trustee? Is there a list of not located MR owners names somewhere?
Michael J. Zwick said:
Katherine-In Texas, when a company cannot locate MR owners within a pooling order, it must initiate a court action. The court is then to appoint a trustee on their behalves to negotiate the leases and collect the bonus and royalty payments. The trustee is usually the court clerk, a judge or a local attorney. We just recovered $250,000 for a client from such an account in Limestone County, Texas.
You need to do a little genealogical research and locate where the woman or her ancestors were located in OK... once you find out their history, then it will become a matter of checking the courthouses there.
If you have the legal description (Sec/Twp/Range), but not sure about the lot #'s, what is the best way to find who owns the mineral rights?