Tracking down a lease on rights

I recently purchased a house and property, the seller also transferred the mineral rights to me. the lease information that they gave me show s that the contract has expired, however they are still getting royalties from another company. I have contacted the current company the previous owner is getting royalties for and they told me they sold there leases to another company, so i contacted company # 3 and they told me they do not have a lease for our property. there is nothing on file with the county that show any leases from anyone. the question that i have is how can i find out who has the mineral lease on my property.

John,

My guess is you don't know how to search the Adams County property records if you can't find any leases on your property, even expired leases. You can search back to the beginning of property records in Adams County, to find the history for your tract of land. If there were ever oil and gas leases recorded involving your land, they will be found in the county records. You would also want to determine what mineral interests you own, and that, too can only be learned from studying the recorded property records on your land, from the first patent from the government, to the most recent deed to you. You can't assume that the seller even had accurate information on what mineral rights go with the land. Many people don't know.

You can also search the records of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, to see what oil and gas wells may exist in your area, and to see if they show any records of current activity involving your land or nearby lands.

You may need the help of a landman to search COGCC records and to research your Adams County property history and determine what mineral interests you own, and what lease interests there may be on the minerals on your lands. That's not a simple exercise, and could easily take a few days to complete. Good luck!

If the seller from whom you purchased the house is getting royalties based on minerals on that land, you should send a written notification to the company paying those royalties, that you are the new owner of the mineral rights that had belonged to the seller. Send them a copy of your deed, too, and ask them to transfer the royalty interest shown on their records, into your name, and to send future royalty payments to you. They may give you a real response with such a written notice.

Ken

thank you for info Ken, looks like I have a lot of work ahead of me.

John,

Part of the problem of searching the Adams County property records comes from where and how the records are organized. Tract index records in Colorado are not kept by the County Clerk and Recorder, but were kept by private abstract companies. The track index books for Adams County are now owned by Heritage Title, a private company located in Greeley. Searching the tract index records there is fairly expensive, with an hourly fee over $200, I believe. Early Adams County records are particularly confusing, both in the tract index and at the County, in part because Adams County was carved out of Arapahoe County, more than a century ago. Copies of some of the early deeds in your title chain may be located in Arapahoe County records. It really takes an expert to search early Adams County records, and it may cost you a bit.

I would start with a written notice to the company paying royalties to the prior owner, that you are the new owner. After receiving notice of the transfer to you, they should start paying you. You might not want to pay a landman a couple of thousand dollars or more, to search the county records and prepare a report showing you your mineral interests, if you only appear (by the size of the royalty checks) to own a fairly small mineral interest.

I did find the company that bought up the leases in my area last part of 2016, after talking to them for some reason they did not get mine, so i sent them a copy of the land title and they are supposed to have a meeting with the other company they bought the lease from. i will send a letter to the company that issued the royalty checks stating i am the new owner. if you have any more information, please pass it a long. thank you very much for your help.