First off, thanks for your guidance, I sure appreciate it.
I am an old retired Army officer with lots of time on my hands and don’t mind doing the work that I can actually do. I have had to go in the back doors but I have found out lots so far. On the good side, the chain of ownership of the mineral rights are pretty darned simple, and the crookedness was done in such a way as to not attract attention. My father-in-law inherited the rights from his father, who owned them and had the wells drilled back in the 20s and 30s. My deceased wife was one of his 5 kids, they inherited equally, and her only daughter is her clear and only heir. There can be no questioning that, and I have all the proof documents.
The cashing of the checks and keeping the money by my wife’s sister was profitable, easy, and nearly foolproof for her. Some checks she forgot to have the address changed, resulted in the state of Florida claiming them. They would only release the funds to the rightful heirs! That was in 2014, this had been going on since 1997, and at least one lessee has claimed they have the funds held in suspense ever since that date! Obviously my current goal is to get all I can find into my daughter’s name and cleared up.
I don’t have the percentage division in front of me, but one of the wells alone pumped out 3,010,352 barrels of oil during that timeframe.
I feel I have to get to the bottom of some of this before I can act. It appears that from the guidance I can get, finding out how much was stolen in those 21 years is not possible, so it is hard to decide to make a claim for an unknown amount. I do know my ex-father-in-law lived VERY WELL off those royalty checks.