My FIL passed away Dec 2019 in MO. We are currently in probate in MO but closing it soon. Our attorney does not have a lot of knowledge in mineral rights it seems after the fact and before this probate closes I want to clear some things up for myself on how we need to proceed.
FIL lived in MO, owns mineral rights in TX, OK and NM. The will stated that the mineral rights were to be split between the 3 brothers. One brother died 7 weeks BEFORE my FIL with no heirs and nothing to probate. So the mineral rights are to be split between my husband and one brother. As part of the estate closing, my husband has bought the other brother’s mineral interests that he would inherit. It will be filed as part of the probate closing. So in the end, all mineral interests will be owned by my husband.
We have not had much direction from the attorney, but now after reading here and other places and a few nice oil companies that have explained things to me. I am seeing that we need to file ancillary probate in TX, OK, and NM to make this truly legal.
Questions if anyone can help me. I will greatly appreciate it.
-Can we close the probate in MO first and then my husband and I just do the ancillary probates in the other states? My husband is the PR of the MO probate. The reason for this is we had a lot of delays and issues and the other brother wants his cash. He does not work, has always lived off of my FIL and is getting ugly. He gets the house and wants his cash. We need to close this probate in MO and get the stress he is causing gone. I am going to ask the attorney if we can have money set up in the final decree to help pay for the ancillary probates and then we will handle it from there if possible? If we can’t have money set up, we will just pay for it ourselves.
-The 3rd brother being deceased and having nothing to probate, will that be an issue? I understand an affidavit of heirship will fix that, but then you have the fact that my husband bought out his other brother. So there is only one person that is going to be owning these interests. Will the affidavit of heirship work with the Assignment of Interest in the Estate & the contract for sale we have?
-Good and reasonable costing attorney recommendations in OK, TX and NM if you have one? I have a local attorney I am going to call this week for consultation or recommendations but I want someone that understands this process easily and will get it handled with minimal issue, quickly and reasonable cost since we may have to pay for this ourselves. After the current attorney I want someone that understands mineral rights.
Thank you so much for any help and guidance. This forum has been a wealth of help for me as I learn all of this as a soon to be new mineral right owner.
Texas does not require ancillary probate. You only have to file the appropriate probate court order and documents in the deed records in each county where the minerals are located. Oklahoma and New Mexico require ancillary probate. It is sometimes best to do this before the probate is officially closed in your state. The probate court can order the transfer of the minerals, but delay the final closing. This also allows you to add more mineral tracts if you find them. Also, ask your attorney to consider addinglanguage in the order that it includes all minerals, surface, caliche, water, executive rights or other property interests in each county, in case there are some interests missing in the specific lists or descriptions.
Thank you Tennisdaze for reply. I appreciate the help! I have had only 1 of like 30 TX oil companies tell me we needed to ancillary. I will go back and see which company it was and do more looking into it. To not have to do it in TX would be great!
The estate is over a year old because of the mess it was when we started into this. The mineral rights were inherited from my FIL’s mother which were in a trust since the 60’s until 2 years ago. The issue was my FiL did not really know what all he had. The trust did not have everything listed that he really owned. It took me months to build a spreadsheet of all the properties from research. Then we had to value them and the attorney did not know how. So I have spent 100’s of hours learning, researching and figuring out what all we have. In the final decree I asked the attorney to list about unknown properties and we did it in the sale contract we did with his brother too. There very well could be more we find later.
Good morning Holly. I am licensed in Oklahoma and can only speak as to how Oklahoma probates work. There is no reason you can’t go ahead and close the MO probate before you do the Oklahoma probate. I would guess your looking at fees between $2,000-$3,000 for an Oklahoma probate, may be a bit more if it is more complex. As for the deceased brother, it depends what your FIL’s will says on what needs to be done. I definitely understand the need to have someone that understands minerals. The MRF directories above has listings of attorneys in various states you may check out.
I believe that Missouri allows an “Independent Administration” in probate. If this process was used then there would be no final order or determination of heirship issued by a judge. While this would not qualify for an Ancillary Probate in Oklahoma, a similar Summary Probate process can be used. Typically a 75-90 day process once the initial paperwork is filed. Also, typically handled on a flat fee.
Thank you Rachel for your reply. I truly appreciate your help. I have wrote down your information. I have an appt with an attorney on Friday but if it does not work out I will give your office a call.
Thank you Richard. I don’t believe the probate was an independent administration. My husband is the PR with independent ability to do things as needed (not supervised by court) but a final decree will be issued as the attorney and I have discussed things that need to be included in it. I have also wrote down your information to keep and will call for a consult if we need one or something in the future. We plan to get all of this worked out and then at a later date move all of these mineral interests and likely our other assets into an LLC to prevent this headache for our kids in the future. I appreciate that you took time to help answer my issues.
Also visit with your Missouri attorney about a probate avoiding trust, this may be more simple than a LLC. Either way, the minerals would need to be deeded into the Trust or the LLC.