Two brothers jointly inherited property with attached mineral rights from their mother via will. The brother living in North Dakota intentionally allowed property tax to default and out of state joint owner brother was not contacted so he didn't know. North Dakota brother shows at county auction and pays back taxes of $4,000 and initiates new deed to property without the other brother, which in effect disinherits out of state brother, and then contacts a landsman and leases out property mineral rights. Currently, the well is marked as confidential. What will happen to the current lease if we contact the landsman to inform them of what has occurred. We are hoping to deal with this out of court due to threats to our family if we pursue quiet title or hire an attorney and are attempting to claim royalties quietly. Also, what and why confidential well and why is the company mortgaging the lease. Is there anyway that we can find out if the well is producing. On-line info says confidential well until Feb 2013.
Get to a lawyer, quickly, there may be nothing you can do, or the clock could be ticking and winding down to the time where your rights are extinguished. I wouldn't bother trying to lease until you can prove you own it. Why would a landman lease from you if they already have the same acres leased with someone else? Especially, when you are so reluctant to start actions to reclaim your interest. I think to the oil company it would look like a waste of money to lease you, for acres they already have from the brother. You can't use the oil company as a way to go around the court system, if they took royalty that they are already paying to the brother based on his title and payed it to you, without you haveing taken court action, the brother could sue the lessee/operator. Ask yourself, why would the operator/lessee expose himself to legal action? There is nothing in it for the lessee/operator. If someone threatens you, report it to someone in law enforcement. You have my sympathy and I wish you luck, but if you don't bite the bullet and do what is necessary, just forget about it. Sorry to have to put it this way, but I also hope you follow my logic.
I'm sorry but I did not mean to confuse the issue. I am a pre-law student and intern for a law firm in another state and I am aware that I cannot currently claim any rights to the lease nor initiate another one. Simply wondering if I advise the drilling company of our claim against the property and rights if it will hinder or help the situation.
r w kennedy said:
Get to a lawyer, quickly, there may be nothing you can do, or the clock could be ticking and winding down to the time where your rights are extinguished. I wouldn't bother trying to lease until you can prove you own it. Why would a landman lease from you if they already have the same acres leased with someone else? Especially, when you are so reluctant to start actions to reclaim your interest. I think to the oil company it would look like a waste of money to lease you, for acres they already have from the brother. You can't use the oil company as a way to go around the court system, if they took royalty that they are already paying to the brother based on his title and payed it to you, without you haveing taken court action, the brother could sue the lessee/operator. Ask yourself, why would the operator/lessee expose himself to legal action? There is nothing in it for the lessee/operator. If someone threatens you, report it to someone in law enforcement. You have my sympathy and I wish you luck, but if you don't bite the bullet and do what is necessary, just forget about it. Sorry to have to put it this way, but I also hope you follow my logic.
Helene, my understanding is that a tax deed is final. By that I mean that it vests clear title to the purchaser.
It is the responsibility of the mineral owner to pay taxes and not the tax office's responsibility to track down delinquent accounts. Sometimes I feel this is abused by the Attorney's hired by the tax offices but unfortunately, it is what it is. I have had the same thing happen to me on some of my Texas minerals.
Sorry.
Helene, the oil company may suspend royalty payments if there is a title dispute, it's up to them.
Helene, you say the well is confidential, are you sure it has been drilled? I only ask because all well permits are confidential wells whether they have been drilled or not. If you look on the confidential well list for this well and do not see a date on which the confidential period ends, the well probably hasn't been drilled yet.
As I said before, if someone threatens you, contact law enforcement.
Good luck.
Usually there is a redemption period on tax sales. Not sure about ND. Also contact the tax office and find out why the brother did not get tax statements for his half of taxes. Sounds like a good case. See an attorney.
Need more facts… Was the mother’s estate probated in ND and filed in the county where the lands are? What do you mean the brother’s acquired jointly? Did the will or Final Decree of the Probate set them out as Joint Tennents or state 1/2 interest each or share and share alike? Had your brother recieved a bill on the taxes or previously paid any taxes? Did you ever recieve a bill on the tax? The answers to all these questions will determine your options at this point.
Also what was the lenght of time between the inheritance and the tax sale and how long has it been since the sale?
Mom's estate was probated in ND with the bad brother as executor who substituted our out of state address for his own, which is probably why we did not obtain any default documents. The will stipulates that each bother inherits 1/2 of two properties, one is a small house in Williston and the other is 80 acres of farmland with mineral rights. Never received any bills for property taxes. Brothers discussed and agreed that rent from home and farmland lease will pay for any repairs and property taxes. My husband just trusted his brother to alert him to any problems and they would speak via phone once to twice a month of which brother never mentioned. Brother worked from his early 20's in a highly regarded county position without break and just retired from the position. He had good income and savings accounts as the county provided him a place for him and his family to live for free next to the county facility he was responsible for and even paid off his own mortgage on a home he rented for the 40 years he lived in the county paid home, which was very nice, by the way. I wanted to do a trust and asked my brother in law for copy of mom's will so I could enter into the trust the interest in mineral rights and two properties. When he didn't answer and upon obtaining a job with a law firm, I found out how to obtain documents on my own, which is when we found out about his actions. He even signed an easement document as agent for my husband and it was notarized without a valid POA on my husband's part. I believe the attorney told him how to get the properties away from us because she did the probate filing and drafted the deeds in both brother's names and she drafted the new documents with just the bad brother's name. Bad brother mentioned a while back he felt his daughter should have properties because she was closer to her grandmother than our 3 kids were who live in Hawaii. It took some time, approximately 4-5 years before they began tax auction, which I believe was in 2009. Property was inherited in 2002. We found out and attempted to resolve with the brother for almost a year now and spoke with attorneys who asked for $15,000 retainers, which is dumb because there is also over $100,000 cash and tangible assets from the home that we found out we were supposed to obtain so a contingency would have behooved an attorney very much. It was also difficult to find an attorney that did not know my brother in law due to his position with the county. However, brother in law began threatening our family if we pursued a claim. My understanding that the statute of limitations for fraud extend past 1 year. This would also be a case of elder abuse, as my husband is 73 years old. Obviously there were problems in the brother's relationship that my husband was not aware of that caused his actions. The bad brother keeps saying he will put the deeds into our kids names and not ours but he has not had time to do so yet. The man is retired and has time to play slot machines on-line and has taken lear jets to Alaska on occasion is what I see he does on Facebook. He has been saying he will give each our our kids 1/3 interest and his one child the other 1/3 interest for 4-5 months now. He did send some royalty checks to our kids in the amount of $3,500 each to subdue us but we want their names on the deeds before the well comes off the confidential list mid February. I believe he wants to first see the potential of the well before having deeds drafted. At first he said he had to wait until a surveyor surveyed the land before he could do the deeds but as a pre-law student and intern at a law firm I knew that was hogwash and I am considering typing the deeds through the law firm I intern for and sending them to him to sign. We don't want any trouble but I am 53 and my husband 73 and the brother is close to 70 and it needs to be done before the brothers pass because his wife will never return the deeds back to their original form. Thanks for the replies and I know my husband should have been less trusting but the fact that his brother did this has really destroyed my husband who just never thought his brother capable of disinheriting him. I think everyone can relate to that. Sincerely
Contact lawyer Jim Maxson in Minot about this interesting case
I think a critical question to ask is, "Did EACH brother have a separate account with the local taxing authority?" My guess is "No," but if they did then the good brother would have been receiving tax statements all along and if he had kept the taxes current on his 1/2 interest, my personal opinion is that regardless of what the bad brother did with the taxes on his 1/2 interest the good brother's 1/2 interest could never be sold at tax sale.
Either way, the "good brother" should have been making sure that the taxes were up to date for his share of the property. Even if the taxing authority still had the property under the mother's name or the bad brother's name only (either of which would explain why the good brother got no tax notices or notice of Tax Sale), and the good brother was relying on the bad brother to pay the taxes, the good brother should still have been VERIFYING everything. Trust but VERIFY.
My guess is that you have a very weak case unless there is a redemption law in ND and you are within that time frame. This is an interesting and complex case that deserves attention from a legal professional.