My father Chester Hamrick owns land in reeves, Texas block 1 lot 177 how do I find information about his land and his lease
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If you’ll go to www.texasfile.com you can buy a copy of your father’s lease for $3.00. It’s showing a lease to Cog Operating (Concho) recorded 1/5/16. It looks like Cog has drilled three or more wells there since 2017.
Here’s a link to Reeves County Appraisal District’s tax record for his mineral interest.
http://esearch.reevescad.org/Property/View/N000163012?ownerId=GMNI20190417143750610
The full legal description is NW/4 Block 1, Section 155 of H & TC RR Co. Survey A-954
Does it say how many acres he owns
Generally speaking, the only way to know how many acres he owns is to have a landman run title, or if it’s producing the operator should know.
The land has been passed down from generation to generation I wonder how I find out who started at to begin with and to find out how it gets divided down
Since the records are showing a lease was filed in his name in 2016 and the Reeves County Appraisal District has an account covering his producing mineral interest it shouldn’t be hard to pin down the net mineral acres Concho Resources (Cog Operating) and the County think he owns.
Try calling the appraisal district at (432) 445-5122, give them the account number for your father that’s shown on that page from their website that I gave you the link to earlier and asked them how many mineral acres that $2,884 appraised value they are showing was based on. You can also contact Concho’s owner relations department at (877) 201-5449 or by email at [email protected] If your father isn’t receiving royalty payments from them they may be holding money in suspense.
Okay thank you I tried calling the appraisal district 5 X but they have not called me back yet. Do you have any idea how I find out about put on this land at first and started passing it down from generation to generation. Because I’m really confused because some of my dad’s brothers and sisters did not get any ground handed down to them.
Hi Lisa, you said you wanted to know how to find out where this interest came from. This is just a brief synopsis of how you would find this out. You’ll want to do a title search. You can do it more or less on your own, but it can get extensive. I’m a landman, and I’ve worked Reeves County on and off for the last five years. It’s an extremely busy county, so you’ll want to do most of it from home if you have the time. Take it as far as you can, and if you can’t figure it out and still want to know, contact a landman. Talk with them and tell them everything you’ve found. Be specific as to what you want. You just want to know what minerals your father owns in this section, and you can get more specific and say this particular tract. Most landmen will actually go to the abstract office first, but if you are unfamiliar with abstract offices, that may not be what you want to do on your own. They charge by the hour. I’ve seen anywhere from $75 - $150 an hour. I don’t remember what Reeves is. Just remember, if you hire a landman, make sure you are prepared to pay that bill. And if your dad’s interest isn’t that big, you may end up paying a landman more money to determine his interest than what the interest itself is actually worth.
Your legal description is: NW/4 of Section 177, Block 1, H&TC Ry. Co. Survey, Reeves County, Texas, containing 160.00 acres, more or less
I believe Dusty1 said it was Section 155. That’s wrong. I checked the lease. It’s definitely Section 177. Your lease is recorded Volume 1226, Page 721, OPR.
You asked about acres earlier. I just want to be clear that just because his lease says 160.00 acres does not mean he owns 160.00 acres. He will likely own a percentage of that. This is included in a lease to describe the tract of land, not the individual landowner’s interest.
I checked the GLO land grant website to verify. Your original Patentee is listed as the Houston and Texas Central Railway Company, aka H&TC Ry. Co. Your chain of title is going to come out of them.
If you want to do it on your own, you’ll probably want to go on TexasFile.com. They claim they have back to 1912 for Reeves County. You’ll want to search the Railway company name Start with a broad name, like Houston, or hous, H&TC, etc. until you find them. One thing that worries me off the bat is that your Patent is from March 23, 1887, and TexasFile only has back to 1912. If they sold it prior to that, it’s probably not online unless the deed was filed after 1912. Basically once you find who the land is sold to, you’ll keep indexing those names as Grantor and running out the title until you reach someone or multiple someones in your family line. Bear in mind, if the section is breaking up into different tracts, any tract description that does not end in the NW/4, W/2 or N/2 is not something you need to worry about.
If you hit a road block, you can check the abstract office for more records, but that can cost quite a bit of money. If you’re certain it was inheritance, and running it forward out of the Railway company isn’t working, I’d start searching family names as Grantee on TexasFile, including any names that are not Hamrick. You’ll want to search by last name primarily. Bear in mind, one person can have multiple source deeds; just because you found one, does not mean there aren’t others. Once you find your source deed(s), start tracing the Grantor(s) of those deeds as Grantee back to where they got it, and so on and so forth until you reach the State of Texas Patent for your lands, or in this case, the Railway company. That’s where you’ll want to start. Hopefully you’ll have more documents at this point and can run it forward again all the way until you get to your dad. Bear in mind, the Patentee could sell interest prior to your particular chain of title, so you’ll have to know if they sold anything prior to your people receiving interest if you want an accurate number, especially if there are documents selling a specific percentage of their interest. You have to know what their interest is at the time to make the calculation.
Special caveats: if your ancestor(s) had their wills probated in Reeves County, you’ll have to either go to the county to search their probate records, or pay to have the county run a search for you, which could take weeks with Reeves. Like I said, super busy county. If their wills were probated in a different county, and they’re not showing up in the land records, you’ll have to figure out what county their will was probated in and try to find it there. And then preferably file a it in Reeves County to make landmen’s lives easier (Ha!).
Anyway, Patents may not be online either. Also, you have to pay for every document you view on TexasFile. If you aren’t sure it will pertain, you may want to just preview for a couple dollars. Harder to read, but better than spending $20 on a document if it doesn’t pertain to you. To keep track of your documents and the timeline, you’ll want to use a runsheet template. I’m sure you can find one online. They’re pretty self explanatory. When you start running title, use a pencil. I’m sure you’ve seen a diagram for a family tree before. That’s what a chain of title should look like if you’re doing it by hand instead of a computer. Bear in mind there are multiple aspects to Mineral ownership. If Non-Participating Royalty Interests start coming out, you’ll have to take those into account. Usually Executive Rights and Bonus stay together, but not always. It is entirely possible your father owns more Executive Rights and Bonus than he does Royalty Interest.
Also super important, just because you can’t find a document on TexasFile does NOT mean that the document doesn’t exist. These databases are created by humans and humans are fallible. They put in the wrong number, skip the document by accident, put in the wrong name etc. If you can’t find anything, again, you can contact a landman to do it for you, or you can go to the courthouse yourself. Last time I was in there, there were people everywhere, hard to find a place to work, and I think they close from like, 11:30 to 1:00, which is super inconvenient. Get there early to find a spot.
Anyway, sorry that got so long winded. I hope it makes sense. Let me know if you have any other questions. Good luck!
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Okay thank you very much for your help
ABond
You’re right it’s Section 177 and I put down 155 by mistake.
The detailed information you provided is a great road map for anyone who is trying to tackle that kind of research. If the moderator is reading this I hope he’ll put it in a spot where others will be able to benefit from it.
The part I still wonder about is the interest that Reeves County Appraisal District appears to be showing in her dad’s name, which indicates he has producing mineral interest there. If she hasn’t already checked with the appraisal people about the basis they have for that account that’s where I would go before I started spending any money on other research.
There are two horizontal wells on the property with laterals running under Section 144. That’s where the taxes would be coming from I think. Also, one well says it’s in the Chief Pinkie Unit and one says the it’s in the Prairie Flower Unit. I don’t know what lands those units cover. If there are more than the above two sections, he’s been getting paid under those wells also, but the appraisal district would still show it being under his tract. At least I think they would. I don’t know much about how that works, but I don’t think they would list someone as being an owner under a tract they don’t own of record. Hope that clarifies your question.
Thank you I will try to call the appraisal office again and see if they ever return my telephone call LOL maybe the sixth time’s a charm
Is there any way of finding out what these wells are producing?
My family in in the same section and we have been given a offer to sell.
I’m wonder if the asking price is two low then again we don’t own a lot of mineral rights.
Shawn, how many NRA and what price is being offered? There are several Hamricks listed in that section, but none look to own very much.
We have .4444444 NMA
Yeah that’s pretty small. I know of one company who buys for fair prices even for smaller stuff - Platform at 214 494 0629. Worth a shot at least.