We were contacted this past week by an investigator regarding our late father’s mineral rights in Mt Diablo California, I guess this was missed when we settled the trust. They have been looking for us for six months.
How do we locate the mineral rights in our father’s name, I found services/land-records/mlrs on blm website but the search page there was not working. I did find both of his plots of land information on the BLM site but nothing regarding the mineral rights.
How do we determine or find out how much our mineral rights are worth?
The investigator gave us the impression that someone wants to buy the mineral rights. Do we have to sell or is there typically an option for allowing lease. What are our options typically.
Does anyone have any other suggestions as we proceed, we are currently waiting for the attorney to contact us, hope to have some idea what we are doing. We don’t want to be taken advantage of and would like to make the best decision regarding this.
You can check the county records for property deeds with your father’s name
and you may be able to find information on his mineral rights ownership.
Once you know where the property is located and if there are producing
wells on-site, you will have a better idea on the value of the property.
Generally you aren’t required to sell and you may have other options
available once you have established your ownership details.
Thank you so much for the information. So, I tried searching the APN and found noting on the 2nd link you provided. This is all I have on the property so far Legal Description of Property, I am on gmail at shellynmcdaniel, my dad was John:
Sacramento County, unicorporated area
APN: 066-0040-003-0000
066-0040-004-0000
It appears that these are surface parcels and don’t involve mineral rights. (“Exc mineral rights” is in the description which usually means excluding
or except mineral rights)
Searchers often send out offers based on property parcel listings. You don’t have to sell or do anything, but it is good to find out more about what you own so you can make a good judgement on any offers.
I believe I found the land in question, as far as I know dad only owns the mineral rights. My research found that it is about 38 acres next to the Aspen VIII Mining Project by Teichert Aggregates in Sacramento is gravel and sand (construction company) based on what I have found and reviewed.
@mnmcdaniel, here is a copy of the parcel map, which you may
have already seen. PM_23102.pdf (1.3 MB)
It doesn’t appear that there has ever been an oil or gas well at this location.
A search of the county records would have to be done to verify what
percent of the mineral rights is owned by your family. Glad you were
able to locate the area.
Thank you, we did find some documents through the courts and that we own half of the mineral rights (dad gave the two plots of the land to his ex wife and 1/2 of the mineral rights which were then sold to the family who currently owns it.
The filed document states excepting herefrom an undivided one half interest in any to all minerals mineral deposits, oil, gas and other hydrocarbon substances of every kind and character in and upon said land as reserved by ‘my father’.
I wonder if anyone can tell me what type of attorney we should contact to represent us in regards to the plaintiffs who are wanting our half of the mineral rights? Thanks so much for all of your help, this is so new to us, especially with it being in CA.
I believe it is the sand and gravel pit adjoining the property that has interest in the mineral rights, I do not believe there is interest in oil/gas. We hope to find out more tomorrow. Do I still contact the oil/gas attorney for this?
Several thoughts. First in California, are sand and gravel classified as minerals or as surface? This varies from state to state. If they are minerals, then that is an asset to be valued. Second, even if the sand and gravel are part of the surface, the company may own the surface where your minerals are located and be unable to mine without purchasing minerals or getting consent. This depends on whether, and to what extent, California minerals are dominant. A California oil and gas / mineral lawyer can advise you so that you maximize your sales value.
Michelle, can I get you to slow down just a bit. You said an investigator contacted you representing a buyer. Later you mentioned plaintiff which is quite different and could require faster responses. I see you listed an APN for what I am guessing is the property in question. Did the investigator present an offer? Have you asked the investigator to disclose the buyer information? Have you asked what the development plan is that includes your property? In many cases, a few well placed questions will get you the answers rather than research and guessing. Many of the mining companies do not want to deal with smaller property owners, so they use contractors. Are you in the position to go to the property and drive the area to see if there is any obvious activity? At present, I would suggest you look for an attorney that specializes in mining issues.They do not need to be local to the Mt Diablo area. You may want to consider finding an attorney in Reno, NV since many also practice in CA. That may also help you with attorneys being conflicted on your representation.
Good to know about the classification. The company doesn’t own the property, it was sold to a woman and now her four boys own the property, they are the ones who hired the attorney who hired the investigator to locate us (about six months ago is what the investigator told us).
I did a search but didn’t really get the answer to how sand and gravel are classified.
Thank you so much for your responses. By the way, my father bought and sold real estate in Sacramento and surrounding areas 1950s into the 1980s (McDaniel Real Estate, John Howard or John H McDaniel). We are now wondering if there may be others he missed in the trust.
Initially an investigator reached out to us and provided the APN #s so we dug deeper and found the court document (attached) mentioning four of our brothers. And I thought it was the property we knew about on Mount Diablo then realized it was Sacramento. Once the investigator provided the APNs, I realized the plots are in Sacramento (I believe adjoining the sand/gravel pit per looking at google).
No offer but the investigator sent me the contact information for the plaintiffs of the two plots and 1/2 of the mineral rights (my father initially transferred to his 2nd wife then she sold it to the mother of the current owners). There are two APNs 066-0040-004-000 which is 20.13 acres and 066-0040-003-000 which is 18.519 acres.
The investigator said she didn’t know much and was only trying to find the living heirs for the attorney. They mentioned a “quiet title”. Sister reached out to the plaintiff’s attorney that we want to file a response and the attorney asked if we would entertain an offer and she said we would, we are not waiting to hear back on this.
I did send the information you provided to my sister, we would like to make an informed decision and do our due diligence before accepting an offer. How do we find out how much the mineral rights are worth? I will see if I can get my cousin who lives in the Sacramento area to drive by the properties and see if there is anything going on.
Yesterday my cousin went by the property and there is nothing going on there, it pretty much looks deserted.
If you are served for the quiet title lawsuit, then you need to file an answer in the court within the specified days (usually 30) to maintain any rights until the case is settled or you sell.
If a QTA has been filed, then your family will need to file a response to the action. This will require having an attorney involved. It sounds as if a QTA is being considered, but may not have been filed at this point. If your father’s Trust/Estate has a valid interest in the property, then it may be in the best interest of the plaintiff to either purchase or reach some agreement on how to develop the property.
As far as the value on mining minerals is Sacramento County, that is well out of my general area of expertise. You of course are not under any obligation to sell your interest in the property; although, there are legal procedures that can be considered to partition the property. I can try to get you connected with a consultant to value your interest, but you will probably be best served to get the offer first so you can consider the economics. I would tell the attorney that you are going to have the property value assessed by a professional and ask them to consider such prior to presenting their offer.
As to whether your father had other properties, that is going to take quite a bit of work if he was active in real estate. This would require examination of all deeds where your father was a grantor for a possible mineral reservation and Mineral Deeds where your father was a grantee as a start. It looks like the Sac Co Recorder of Deeds has an online index, but you will have to go to their office to view the document. Do you still have your father’s property files/records? If so, start from the point of looking through those records.
Have you thought about keeping the oil and gas rights and only sell your interest in the sand and gravel like materials? Also what about water rights, and other minerals other than the oil and gas? You could do that in Texas, but I don’t know about California. Proceed with caution. It sounds like they are really mainly interested in the hard surface rights.
Another question regarding this. Sister contacted the attorney for the plaintiff and apparently someone made an offer to them for the property but the buyer doesn’t want t buy with a cloud on the title.
The attorney said there is nothing valuable there, no gold or oil. She said they wanted to pay “north of $20k” fr the rights.
My question is, how do we get an appraisal for the mineral rights on this property (in the Sacramento area)? Sister has not had any luck finding an appraiser who does this.