First I want to say as new mineral owner, I love this board. I have learned so much and use the search feature a lot to help with the unknown issues. So thank you for all for your knowledge that you share! I still have a lot to learn. lol
My issue. I have similarly posted about this before, but need help with specific info now. FIL passed away in MO. Owned mineral rights in TX, OK, and NM. I have TX and OK taken care of but I have ran into an issue in NM. The probate in MO has been closed. The mineral rights were suppose to go to my husband and his brother, but my husband bought out his brother’s portion with an assignment in the probate. So we closed the probate with the final settlement saying all mineral rights went to my husband. We also have a personal representatives deed that the attorney did. We live in OK
I thought I understood clear that NM did an ancillary probate and we could file it ourselves, but what I didn’t read enough into is that the foreign probate should still be OPEN not closed. I was told by a NM judge that I needed to reopen the probate in MO and then file a Proof of Authority , etc.
I am just wanting to find out if I have other options besides reopening the probate in MO. Our attorney was not the greatest and we had several issues with him, one of which was a big one to me (waiting on the judge to sign an order of discharge the attorney said we needed, that the judge was not going to sign because it was not needed - the final settlement took care of that- found this out when I called probate division myself after waiting longer than we were suppose to for it to “close” --It was already closed). I am going to call the probate court in MO and ask them about the process to reopen a probate too and costs.
Do I have other options for getting these mineral rights transferred from the estate to my husband’s name? Because of my husband buying out his brother, we want to make sure title is clear of the owner. Also I need suggestions for a good attorney in NM if we need to go that route.
At this point with the probate distributed, this is on our dime. This is 100% my fault and I should have gotten it figured out. This whole process was just overwhelming due to so many issues we have had along the way and me doing 98% of the work.