We received a letter asking us to sign it to receive royalties from the land. We are curious to know how to we find out if the land has already been drilled and how much do we receive. Everyone else in my family that received the letter three years ago about owning land threw it away and said it was a scam they knew nothing about. I am the only one that signed the first paper and got a $300 check and now we got a division order asking us to sign it. It is 547 acres according to our letter from last time. Just need to know if we need a attorney or just sign this as it says to send it back before 30 days to start getting payments.
Welcome to the forum. Would need to know which county and district in order to check the mapping info on the dep.wv.gov site which you can certainly do yourself. Do you have a lease to reference? If not you could check the county clerk’s office either online or in person with the family name to see if anything is recorded. A division order DO should have a property/well number and name of the pad it is associated with along with the tax parcel numbers that are involved with the well. In addition it would have a calculation of the acreage for each tax parcel that is associated with the well divided by the total acreage in the unit multiplied by your interest share multiplied by your royalty interest which will yield a decimal interest in the royalties paid. Confusing, yes. Maybe an attorney is the right way to proceed.
The National Association of Royalty Owners had their national convention in your neck of the woods a few years ago. I remember sitting in on a session that specifically said to not sign Division Orders in West Virginia. The DOs often include language that gives away your rights without you really understanding what you are signing. There are ways to give the company the information that they need in order to get you into pay status without you giving away your rights. Definitely talk to an attorney about the proper language to put into a response letter. Send by certified return receipt and keep a copy of everything that you send.
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