My siblings and I have recently inherited mineral rights from my father that was part of Charles (Charlie) Wheeler’s estate (Harrison County). He left everything to his nieces and nephews. We don’t know anything about the land or how many acres even. I have track #'s but that’s all. I don’t even know where its located exactly. I’ve called the property appraiser trying to figure it out to no avail. I’m in hopes that someone on here can guide me or perhaps also has a parcel from Uncle Charlie.
If you want to try looking through the online deed records, Texasfile is a really great service. It does cost money to download the deeds and there are a number of people with the name ‘Charles Wheeler’ in the Harrison County deed records. There’s a Charles D Wheeler, Charles M Wheeler, Charles F Wheeler, Charles L Wheeler and so on. I did see a federal tax lien filed on 12/16/2019 against the property of a Charles L Wheeler (may or may not be your relative). Constructing a chain of title to determine what you own can be a difficult task.
Your help has led me down a rabbit hole! LOL!! I found the Will, the deed stating the retained mineral right’s along with several leases. I also found where the guy who bought the land has several wells and also did a Mineral Deed in 2016 including 155.48 acres of the land we have rights on (664.48 acres in total we retained 1/2 mineral rights). Do you know how that’s possible without ever notifying us? or can you point me towards another rabbit hole? lol
Happy to help & glad to hear you found some helpful information.
Don’t be too worried about the guy selling his mineral rights where you also have mineral rights. This is super common and happens all the time. They definitely do not have to notify you either.
So that means that we still own 1/2 of the mineral rights for the 664. acres? How does that work if they’ve produced oil on the land? Shouldn’t royalties be paid to anyone with mineral rights regardless of who leases the land? Also I found where he sold 155 acres but there’s no mention that he doesn’t own all the minerals for it. Prior to selling he got a mineral deed on it.
You probably own 1/2 of the minerals, but that is dependent on what happened before the deed out to this person. Full title runs tracing ownership back all the way are very time consuming and can be very difficult, depending on a number of factors. Mineral deeds frequently convey ‘everything that I own in X tract’ without explicitly stating what percentage is owned. This is one of the things that can make full title runs difficult.
Royalties should be paid to everyone who owns minerals in a producing unit / well. However, you usually need to be under lease to receive them (sometimes your own lease, sometimes a lease form signed by the prior owner). There may not be active oil & gas production on your tract. Do you have an abstract number or name for this tract? Frequently written in shorthand as ‘A-##’
There are actually 9 tracks that were inherited totaling 664 acres and was sold the same way to Dudeck. who has 5 active wells. I have located vol and page #'s I have a couple abstact#'s but not sure how to track those down. I’ve back traced 155 acre lease that Dudeck had to the land he bought from us.
You need to review the deed history and the exact wording in deeds. You mentioned an estate and a subsequent sale by the heirs of the tract to someone named Dudeck. If the deed to Dudeck did not properly reserve the minerals to the selling heirs, then Dudeck could have gotten all their minerals.
I found where the mineral right’s were put in our names during probate. I would like to see about doing another lease I’m just not sure how much land we can do the lease on. I’m assuming the 664 acres that we have the right’s on.??