Several members of my family have received offers by Antero to purchase or lease our mineral rights. We had no idea we owned these rights. According to Antero, the subject property is equal to 44.52 acres once owned by William L And Ann M Fox in Tyler WVA (ten mile creek area). Apparently their are 432 known heirs. Antero stated that my interest is .01039 acres. (approx 1/100 of an acre) Antero is offering $400 to purchase our rights or $200 plus 14% royalties for a 5 year lease. My question is this: if there are 432 heirs and we each own .01039 acres, thats only approx. 4 of the 44 acres. Antero also stated there were 4255 original heirs but only 432 living. Who is getting the remainder of the royalties on the land, if not the heirs? It appears as though they divided the original heirs by the acreage to get my ownership percentage. Am I missing something here? Secondly, they spoke to one of my cousins and indicate once they get 75% of the heirs to sign off they can go to court and request drilling permits to begin operations. I’m assuming they will only purchase what they need to get 75% to begin operations.
Different heirs, usually own different percentage of the total acres. It can be difficult to figure out. I could own a 1/15, my cousin 1/9, and another cousin 1/6. Depends on the siblings in each family.
And NOW the question LEASE or SELL?
First off, I have to say THANK YOU to the folks who often reply with some of the BEST advice and I truly appreciate it. I will probably be a regular on here, but maybe not now that I will probably sign a new lease and with guess who??? ANTERO!! One thing before I sign though is to get good and credible information from this land person to see how reliable they are in helping you out with questions and inquiries …EQT has been the worst thus far, but after a few emails and letting them know how unhappy I am they finally worked with me a bit. Jay-Bee is wonderful! SO…BJA2998…we are very similar in just about everything you offered. I do not know every single person who shares my rights/interests…mine was an inheritance from my mom. And because there are so many, I cannot brag I getting rich from royalties. In fact, I am putting it almost right back into taxes I have to pay to the Tyler County Sheriff Office!!! I do not wish to whine or complain. I am grateful for what was left for me and every little bit helps. Just not the big payout we thought would occur. There is lots of advice on this site where to look at where leases are concerned. I’m going to try and post my situation without too many details, but I WAS advised how much to ask for (per another poster), and WHAT to include in my lease. I do not have quite the number of heirs or owners (432 living), as you but maybe 1/2 that. Currently, Out of frustration weeks ago, I was REALLY considering selling my share of one track, but MANY advised against selling because once things pick up again (???), things should look up and royalties forthcoming. NOt only that but if they are still making offers to buy or lease, that should signal SOMETHING is WORTH it to these companies to make offers. Moving on…Antero approached me out of the blue, clear sky weeks ago. mind you this was a telephone exchange and a contract was mailed to me and others who were asked to sing as well. I nearly fell off my chair laughing at their offer and flet insulted!! I posted on here and someone responded with a very nice list of what to counter with and ask for. I was also reminded to “TRY”…because you will not always get what you ask for UNLESS you hire an attorney and let then haggle for you. Like many of the other folks have also said on here as well…it depends on the percentage of what you and the others own and how your offers are made and justified. I WILL admit too, when I first leased 5 years ago, with StatOil…they spoiled me with a very handsome sing on bonus and % of royalties…I was very proud of myself because I did not accept the first offer, and they were a GREAT company to work with. The landman actually came here personally out of state. He went over the entire lease and I was able to see every single person on the lease. ANTERO REFUSES to tell me this now stating this is against their company policy…Hhhhmmmm…why can one do it but another can’t or won’t??? So more suggestions came through here to go to the Tyler county website where if you know all of your people, you can search the documents and SEE who has negotiated leases. The ONLY way to know though WHAT they were offered is by contacting each one personally. After my research and whined a little about possibly selling on here and with another company, I had an offer for close to $4,000 and quitclaim. They actually gave me TONS of information on EXACTLY how much of that property I own. Turns out it is hardly that much at all, so NOW that made sense WHY the offer was Pretty low…a $200 sign-on bonus and 12.5% royalty. The research took quite a bit of time so the legal papers/lease agreement sat around for that time. One other thing happened too that did not help my case…during that time I was also emailing the land guy with my opinions and concerns and how I was feeling unhappy with their offer…I come to find out there was a mistake in his email address, and he NEVER received my responses. I finally sent him a text and we got it all cleared up. I just got a new lease Friday. They DID increase the sign-on bonus amount by about $100 and also raised the % a bit more on the royalties. Am I still getting screwed??? I don’t know. I do not negotiate with any of my relatives. I do it on my own. I DO feel confident there are many people who own land, and the track is quite small, so all in all, I feel just a tiny bit better about their SECOND offer. As I said, unless it is worth it to hire an attorney with a HUGE amount of land, you are pretty much stuck negotiating on your own. My apologies for going on and on, but we’re sort of all in this together.
This topic was automatically closed after 90 days. New replies are no longer allowed.