Hello! We just bought a home in Tarrant County and mineral rights were part of the purchase. It turns out Axia Land Services is listed on the lease agreement with the prior owner. Unfortunately Axia’s phone number has been disconnected. When I do a search nothing comes up….what is the easiest way to handle this? (the document says, “Paid up Oil & Gas Lease, no surface use”.
You can try using www.Texasfile.com and hunt for the lease and any subsequent transfer. At least you may be able to find out the time frame of the lease to see if is it still in effect or has expired. If you want to share the Block, abstract name and number and section number, we may be able to see if there is a new well going under the acreage.
The original lessees in most cases are just brokers, many of which are long gone. It really depends on whether your lease was drilled or not. To be fair, a majority of leases in Tarrant County have been drilled and are producing / active.
Were the minerals ever reserved between the time they were leased and your purchase?
You will need to use the RRC GIS website to look at wells and see if any are close to you: https://gis.rrc.texas.gov/gisviewer/
All of the deed records are free here: https://tarrant.tx.publicsearch.us/
If you find a well close to you, identify who the operator is and then contact them. They will ask you for a chain of title, which you should be able to get through the other link I provided for Tarrant County Deed Records. There is no need to pay for copies, just download the documents as PDFs. You don’t need certified copies for this purpose either.