R W , I feel really sorry for your sister in law. I have been there, 3 months to get rid of dead beats, than pay for a sheriff to stand there and enough people to get things moved to the curb with a time limit. So, I do understand. Then spent a small fortune clean up and repairing the place. I didn't know smoking could cause so much damage till I had to wash all the walls before I could paint. That is why I don't have rent houses or apartments anymore.
I hate to say this. A person should be able by law to claim any property that is left on their property for any length of time. Except find the agency that can do that. If you take an sell the equipment, a bank may have a loan on it and you will be liable for paying that load off. Laws are made, but no one can enforce them. I had some pump jacks on my property for 6 years, never received a check so I assumed the well was dry. I wanted the property cleaned up and ask the operator to get his junk off my farm. He stated that I had moved a propane tank that was used to pump the well, he tried to sue me. Lucky I had wrote down the propane company name and called and found out they had picked up the tank. So, I had to counter sue in order to get the junk off my land. He had 3 pump jack setting there, not being use. And one down the hole. When they came out to plug the well, the guy thought the well was dry, sparked the side pulling the casing and catch his pulling unit, 3 semi trailers on fire and burned up 5 acres of my hay meadow. Luck we had taken the tractors back to the home farm that night as we decided we would wait a week to put the hay up or it would have burned up our tractors and hay equipment which isn't cheap nowadays. So, what we think should be right may not be the way it goes.
R W ,
You are probably right that CKP won't be changing their ways with the little people. But, at lease more people will be aware not to do business with them. I just added another clause to my upcoming lease. My lease can not be sold to Chesapeake or any partner. That will take in a lot of companies. One of these days, a land man will say, no way we will buy that and that will be fine too.
Virginia, possibly someone could go through the lengthy process of claiming the equipment as abandoned. If the bank does not notice the public notice, it's not your fault as you have no way to know who has a lien against the equipment. You will have taken the proper legal steps, not just removed someones property from your property with no care to legality. I'd be consulting my lawyer. I firmly believe where there is will, there is a way, it may take you some time to find it though.
Virginia Pflum said:
R W , I feel really sorry for your sister in law. I have been there, 3 months to get rid of dead beats, than pay for a sheriff to stand there and enough people to get things moved to the curb with a time limit. So, I do understand. Then spent a small fortune clean up and repairing the place. I didn't know smoking could cause so much damage till I had to wash all the walls before I could paint. That is why I don't have rent houses or apartments anymore.
I hate to say this. A person should be able by law to claim any property that is left on their property for any length of time. Except find the agency that can do that. If you take an sell the equipment, a bank may have a loan on it and you will be liable for paying that load off. Laws are made, but no one can enforce them. I had some pump jacks on my property for 6 years, never received a check so I assumed the well was dry. I wanted the property cleaned up and ask the operator to get his junk off my farm. He stated that I had moved a propane tank that was used to pump the well, he tried to sue me. Lucky I had wrote down the propane company name and called and found out they had picked up the tank. So, I had to counter sue in order to get the junk off my land. He had 3 pump jack setting there, not being use. And one down the hole. When they came out to plug the well, the guy thought the well was dry, sparked the side pulling the casing and catch his pulling unit, 3 semi trailers on fire and burned up 5 acres of my hay meadow. Luck we had taken the tractors back to the home farm that night as we decided we would wait a week to put the hay up or it would have burned up our tractors and hay equipment which isn't cheap nowadays. So, what we think should be right may not be the way it goes.
R W ,
I got rid of the equipment and they re-leased my lease. But, I did have to take them to court. The small oil company (foreign) didn't even hire a lawyer till the day before we were going to court. In Oklahoma you can't represent yourself in court if you are a company and it's not smart to ever represent yourself in any court case. The judge ask their lawyer what he had to say, he didn't know, so it took less than a minute for the judge to rule in my favor. But, I was out several thousand dollars and I did lots of the work myself.
There you go Virginia, if they were claiming the lease was still in effect, then the equipment still had some tenuous reason for being there. The lease ends when the lease says it ends, if you have to go to court to get the lease released, it didn't end on the day the court gives the decision, it ended on the day it ended according to the lease. Virginia, I sure hope you recouped something from the suit.
I think people believe that the operator will come in, develop and extract the minerals and when they are done, leave. I think that is too frequently what does not happen. They will stay until you kick them out and they are not necessarily good guests. It might cost you more to kick them out than you ever received in royalty. I frequently have said that you should not put your name on any contract that does not have a certain dollar value. Make sure it's worth your while.
R W ,
I didn't get anything except my lease re-leased. This foreign company don't go by our rules. He keep saying the lease was in force and he was using the shut in clauses. It's a long story. Anyway, I got rid of him