Hi, I have some royalties coming from Newfield for property that I inherited from my father, that he inherited from his father. Newfield is withholding payment of the royalties over the wording in the will and the interest he gave to my aunt.
He left her 1/6th of the royalties only, no lease bonuses, and 1/6 of any proceeds from any sale of the mineral rights. Since she wasn’t entitled to lease bonuses, they didn’t have current information for her. I was able to track down her children and sent the information to Newfield months ago. After lots and lots of tries I finally got an email from the analyst and she said to get a title attorney. She explained that everyone listed on the Division Order would have to agree to what share my aunt would get. I guess that since the will said she was entitled to proceeds from a sale that complicates whether its an NPRI.
I have a sibling that is working with an attorney in Vernal but he doesn’t communicate (and when he does it’s not clear) so I don’t know what the process is or what the status is and my attempts to contact the analyst at Newfield has not been very successful. I contacted my aunt’s heirs recently and they had heard nothing about this from Newfield or any attorney. My cousins now have information and were going to contact Newfield for more information. Counting them there are about 20 people involved that I understand will have to sign the Stipulation of Interest.
Why would the attorney or Newfield not try to contact my aunt’s heirs? What is the process for the Stipulation of Interest, does it have to go to a judge? My sibling is saying the attorney has already charged $2000 for whatever they have done to date. I’m a little leery of this attorney since he did our determination of heirs and did not send me or my siblings a copy of the filing of the order or the hearing date. I had to call Duchesne county to get a copy of the order after the hearing and called the atty’s office to make sure that I got a copy of the recorded DOH.
Any thoughts or advice?