My parents died a decade ago and left a trust dividing all property equally between my sister and me. All that is except a very small piece of Mineral Rights my Dad had inherited. We each received half of a larger Mineral Rights deed in 5N 1W that we had transferred to each of our names and have leased that property 3 times so far. I have made an inquiry question about that property in another post.
I remember in a conversation with my father 40-50 years ago that his parents also owned 5 acres of royalty near Rosedale. When his parents died it was divided between my Father and two siblings. So, he apparently owned 1 2/3 acres of mineral rights which were recorded in his name. He left that out of his trust. My sister and I didn’t know about this Mineral Right until we found an unclaimed property notice with the Oklahoma Tax Commission about 5 years ago. That’s when I remembered that old conversation with my Dad.
I followed up on it and found that he was owed a royalty(or lease) check for $120 which we managed to obtain. At that time we contacted an attorney in Wayne/Purcell who had helped us get our inherited mineral rights to the 1W property properly recorded in our names. She said it would probably cost us$1500-2000 to get the 1 2/3 acres divided between us and recorded in our names. At the time we didn’t feel the expense justified the results and have just left it recorded in our Father’s name.
Now I have found we have another unclaimed fund amount in my Father’s name on the OTC site. We are going to follow up on that when we get together next week.
I suggested to my sister that we ought to settle that deed between us in some fair manner so we don’t have to keep pursuing any future claims for that property. Also, we know of the increased interest in our larger holding a couple of miles west in 1W that exciting events may be about to happen there.
So, Im asking for advice here in the forum as to what may be the most cost effective way to deal with this property that was left out of my Father’s trust and will. The rights when divided between us will only amount to 5/6 of an acre of mineral rights for each of us. I have no idea of the value of mineral rights that small. If all we have to look forward to is a $100 lease/production check every 4-6 years, it doesn’t seem worth the expenditure of $1500 now considering both of our advanced ages.
Anyone have any ideas? Thanks