Over the past many months I have been dealing with lots of issues after finding out the mineral interests my family owns have not been managed. According to family records our family owns mineral rights in both McKenzie & Williams County North Dakota. Last year I found out that these mineral rights had not been managed well. I found lots of un-cashed royalty checks that were placed in storage and unclaimed money on various web sites related to royalty payments in several states. At this point I can happily state that most issues have been resolved with one rather troubling exception.
This last issue is related to mineral ownership in Township 146 North, Range 98 West Sections: 10, 11 & 14 - McKenzie Co ND. I contacted Continental after finding ten checks issued Oct 2012 thru July 2013 related to the Porjorlie 21-2-1H well. Continental indicated to me that they determined that these royalty checks were issued in error. My late father owned mineral rights in this area but sold them in 1957. At first Continental was claiming that because of this sale our family had no more mineral rights. I informed them that my grandfather also owned mineral rights in the same sections as well. My late father later inherited his fathers mineral rights in November 1969. Continental then agreed that my grandfather also owned mineral interests. They however claim that once my father obtained a mineral interest from his father, because of the warranty language from his deed to the person he sold his mineral rights to in 1957 those inherited mineral interests were given to that person to complete that conveyance. Sounds crazy to me!
I still continued to press for my answers, so most recently, Continental is stating that they now require a stipulation of interest, or agreement, between this other owner & us as to who owns what mineral acres. Continental will not pay anything to either of us at this point. This other owner was copied on the email stating this but we have not heard anything from him.
This whole thing sounds crazy to me! How could Continental just transfer our mineral rights to someone else and why do neither of them need to provide evidence to us that supports this ownership/transfer. Instead I am left to decide whether we want to move forward with our claim to ownership.
The bottom line is that because of the title issues which happened when these deeds were signed in the 1950s, and which have never been resolved, Continental claims there remains a cloud on the ownership and will not pay until that cloud is removed.
My attorney in North Dakota indicates that the only way to be sure that Continental is correct is to do a complete title opinion on the property. He can not give me a ballpark of how much this would cost to do. He further states that according to the history of the well and the amount of mineral acres in dispute the amount of royalties that we would be due may not justify spending a lot of money to clarify the title. He also stated though that just because there has not been a lot of drilling in the area does not mean that there could not be a lot of drilling in the area in the future.
Can anyone offer some input and or recommendations that would help me to move forward to clear title? I would like to keep costs down during this process as much as possible. I have paid out a lot of money to attorneys already and have spent many hours dealing with all these issues. So close but yet so far!