Escheated Money in Texas

Law & Legal
1

Looking for advice and suggestions in the following scenario.

Two different scenarios, but I believe they both have the same answer.

  1. You are the heir to a royalty interest whose title is not clear.
  2. You buy royalty interest from an heir of a property whose title is not clear.

In both cases, the title is cleared and you get in pay status - but a good portion of the suspense was escheated. You don’t own all the escheat, but you would own a portion of it.

Would a lawyer be the best way to go in working to get the portion of escheat that would you yours? Do most lawyers work off a % of the escheat they recover, or just an hourly fee? Just looking at the best path to recover - and what would be the standard fee for such a service. What kind of timeline is normal to recover these funds?

Any advice is appreciated.

2

Welcome to the forum. It would be very helpful if you listed the state as rules and practices vary widely.

To answer your question, there are many ways that an attorney may arrange the fee structure. In a contingent fee scenario, the client risks the over payment to the attorney if the matter turns out to be simple, but risks nothing if there is no recovery. The risk to the attorney is that he/she will be under compensated if it requires time or no payment if there is no recovery.

3

Sorry, I thought I had included this. Texas

4

You did, A couple of Texas attorneys are listed in the directory: https://www.mineralrightsforum.com/page/mineral-services-directory/1/