"Disclaimer of Interest" Request from a KS Landman

I received a request to sign a disclaimer of interest for what our family company holds “in all of Section 35-22S-10W, Reno County, referencing 0.0004404 royalty interest in the Peace Creek Unit.” They claim my grandfather “owned no record interest of any kind in the captioned land.”

My grandfather (or his estate) transferred the land to our company and now this landman is asking me to sign a Disclaimer of Interest. I was not offered evidence that my grandfather did not own what he transferred to our company. My uncle (who would have overseen this transfer) and my grandfather have both passed. There are records scattered across multiple states and many have been lost in moves. I have no idea where to begin to look for documentation in our records let alone searching public records. I have only recently taken over operations due to my uncle’s unexpected and untimely death.

I certainly will not be signing anything, unless they offer hard evidence that we don’t rightly own this. Does anyone have any advice or suggestions for me? Researching this seems quite daunting. Can I just ignore this for a few months until my regular full time job slows down? Thank you.

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Ask the landman to send you an email describing what he wants and why it is needed. Is it possible that in the transfers filed of record that your grandfather or his estate was left off the deed for this tract? Or that he was not in the chain of title? Or that maybe it passed to your parent? Then do not sign any disclaimer without having an attorney review. This highlights the importance of saving the deeds and oil and gas leases, hard copy and scanned. Get a copy of your grandfather’s estate probate too. Ask the landman for his title run on the tract and if possible the deeds.

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Thank you! This is just what I needed. Taking over unexpectedly has been rather overwhelming.

Let us know what you find out

Have a Kansas attorney review the letter. In some states failure to respond could result in the award of attorney’s fees in a quiet title action is the requestor is successful.

This post is not legal, tax or investment advice. Reading or responding to this post does not create an attorney/client relationship.