After spending the day searching the Internet, reading articles, and collecting links, I still feel a bit lost and overwhelmed and could use some tips.
My mother inherited a several-times-divided royalty interest on a set of wells in Lewis County (the original owner being my 2nd great-grandfather). She and her sister inherited it from their mother, but Mom died last year and my aunt is in decline so no help there. My sister was starting to handle this but she died in August so the hot potato is now in my lap. Before she died Mom was getting monthly checks for $2-$16 (based on the last few months). The description in Mom’s trust and the receipts say Lewis Co., but trying to search on the name of the wells I get results in Upshur Co. I’m fairly certain it’s just royalties, not land.
None of we remaining kids in this generation want to deal with keeping this, but we’ll also want to know we’re getting a fair price. My aunt’s kids may be willing to go in so we’re at the level of our grandmother’s share. We’re all in California. My sister had emailed with Mountain V (the company sending Mom payments) but hadn’t gotten a response to her last email in Jun 2023.
Can someone point me to a good site to get a handle on terminology and such? As I said, I’ve spent several hours and am more confused than when I started :-).
While waiting for someone with more knowledge than me to answer you, I can tell you what I did when I was in your shoes a few years ago.
Send a certified letter to Mountain V Oil & Gas Inc. notifying them of your mother’s death and ask what you need to provide, as her heir, to get into pay status on the wells. Provide as much information as you can in the letter meaning your mom’s full name and her owner number or account number off of a statement if you have it. I googled Mountain V for the address and found the following - 144 Fink Run Road, Buckhannon, WV 26201
Mountain V will tell you what they need from you. Again, send certified as you will want a paper trail for your records.
Once you are in pay status, your check will have a statement attached which should show decimal ownership and the name of your wells. Maybe you have this info already. You might have money being held in suspense at Mountain V if they knew of your moms passing and stopped her checks. You mentioned your sister had been working on it.
Even tho your moms checks were small, do not discount what you may have. I also reside in CA (Bay Area). Before my father passed, he had been receiving $33.00 quarterly on two shallow wells in Wetzel County. We worked with an oil and gas attorney out of Fairmont, WV who was helping us with a lease in a different county. Like you, our decimal interest was small in parcels scattered. No desire to hang on to those minerals. Lawyer had a buyer he had previously worked with who purchased ours for 5k/acre. It was almost too easy. Took about 3 months from start to finish. Good luck to you!
I have the emails between my sister and Mountain V. She informed them of Mom’s death in May 2023, the last payment was in June '23, and she sent the info they asked for (death cert, etc.) in July '23. As far as I can tell they never replied to that July email.
But I did find a couple of fat file folders with info on the wells, and knowing my parents it’s everything they found in my grandmother’s files after she died in the 1980s and everything that Mom got (before and after her death). That’s going to take a while to go through :-).
Do forum rules allow you to name the Fairmont attorney? Unsurprisingly, our California estate attorney has no idea what to do with WV mineral interests.
He came recommended to us. When I first contacted Alex, his client list was closed and we were put on a waiting list. Took a couple of months before we were able to speak with him. It helped that I have an Aunt who lives in the area and stopped by his office to periodically check in.
I also had an appraisal done with a company Alex recommended for capital gains purposes. If you do at some point sell, you will want to know what the minerals were valued at when your mom passed. Alex recommended a couple of different ones. The one I chose was very reasonably priced. I used him a couple of times. Let me know if you’d like the info.
In case my response to you got flagged because I named the lawyer, in the “looking glass” at the top of the page where you can search, type in Wetzel County WV. Once you are in the Wetzel County section, scroll down until you get to June 2022 and you see the Subject titled 2022 Current Lease Signing bonus and % Net Acres. You will find what you are looking for there when I responded to WVHillbilly. Good luck.