My grandmother owned many small mineral interests (no surface) in Burleson and Milam counties which she left to my children in a trust. The properties are not listed out in the trust or her Will, it just says "all properties owned". We have no good records of these properties as in deeds or anything. I find out which ones we own when:
1. companies contact me for a lease or send a division order
2. by doing a Texas lost funds search I found lots of royalty payments that had been going to the state for many years
3. Burleson county sends tax notices that we pay for estimated royalty income
My question is, how do I find the original deed that shows we own the mineral rights and how much our interest is? I've been to the courthouse but had no luck because I didn't really know what to look for. I found many many records in my family's name but they are all old leases and no deeds and the ownership amount is not listed on the lease.
Recently I was asked to sign a division order verifying our decimal interest in a property that has been pooled and drilled. I have no way to verify the interest percentage. The landman told me that they spend thousands of dollars researching the records and that if I disagree I have to either do my own research, drill my own well, or just take their word for it.
I was made the trustee about two years ago and really need to figure all this out as I am considered a fiduciary and legally responsible for the administration of this trust. Any help to point me in the right direction would be greatly appreciated. I'm kind of overwhelmed right now with trying to learn all this oil and gas stuff. Thanks in advance.
Crystal, friend me and I will get you started. Click on the blue picture thing with my name and under it will be a friend request. It takes time, but there are ways to do it.
Crystal,
It can be a long process, but starts with building and maintaining an inventory of properties. Tax statements, division orders, leases, etc. are all good places to start, but eventually you will want to get copies of the documents that created your interests, such as a deed. This is because these documents actually describe what you own, as tax statements, etc. can be unreliable.
You might scroll through the blog articles on this site for pointers.
Hi Wade. The deeds are what I am most looking for. I was told that mineral rights do not have "deeds" but maybe some other type of document? I will search here for some info on that subject. The courthouse left me empty handed as there were too many branches to follow to get back to the original.
Wade Caldwell said:
Crystal,
It can be a long process, but starts with building and maintaining an inventory of properties. Tax statements, division orders, leases, etc. are all good places to start, but eventually you will want to get copies of the documents that created your interests, such as a deed. This is because these documents actually describe what you own, as tax statements, etc. can be unreliable.
You might scroll through the blog articles on this site for pointers.
Mineral rights are normally split from ownership of the surface in a deed, but there are several different types of mineral rights. Also, there are other documents that can create mineral rights.
This article might help get you started–
http://www.mineralrightsforum.com/profiles/blogs/i-may-own-minerals-so-now-what
Thanks for the information Wade. I've got lots of interesting reading to do.
Wade Caldwell said:
do the materials you have, division orders ect refer to specific surveys or abstracts ? you might be able to start finding out where you various tracts are thru that. once you know where a specific tract is then you can go back thru the deeds and find out when the minerals were split off. If your estate acquired them later then you would have to follow the trail of deeds and leases after that point in time. Hopefully your county will allow you to go and search in the records yourself. This is a lot more librarian than detective. Surveys and abstracts are the original land records, a survey of the first sale of the land from the state to an individual. all subsequent divisions into smaller parcels will refer back to those surveys and abstracts. Texas is blessed with a system of original land surveys that goes back to Spanish land grants that were measured out in Varas, where as backwater places like Oklahoma and Arkansas must make do with the Jeffersonian system of sections, township, and range
Andy,
I never thought of looking for the property rather than the owner. Yes, I know most of the Survey and abstract IDs. I wonder if it would be easier to start in modern times and work my way backwards or vice versa? I think most of the interests were conveyed to my grandmother probably sometime before 1950, so anything in the records would not be online but in the books.
you can see the original survey / abstracts on the Tx railroad commission gis viewer and it will also show you well locations and well status, give you api #s ( well identifiers) that you can look up production records ect the nice thing about records before 1950 is that there should be a lot less to wade thru to find stuff
I just looked at the RRC viewer for the fist time the other day. I didn't really understand how to use it, but I could see that there was quite a bit of info available there. I believe I will give it another go. Thank you for the tips. :)
Crystal,
There is a video on the Home page to this site that shows you how to use the original RRC viewer.
Thank you Wade. I will definately check that out.