I have received a lease amendment for mineral rights. HOw can I get my hands on the current lease and find out when it expires. This lease dates back to 1894 but I would like to know what lease American Energy is now operating under. THe amendment states 1/8 share of 80 acres. My research shows this lease was amended in 2011 and 2013 by other relatives that I do not know. If you receive an amendment and sign it, does that extend the existing lease. HOw can I find out what royalties the other relatives have been receiving? This is all new to me. The location is 80 acres to be pooled to comprise 640 acres. Offer of $350 signing bonus but I would like to know the details of the lease that is being amended before I sign anything. Many thanks for the collective wisdom of this group.
Hi Criss,
Try this link
[This is copied and edited from another discussion ] choose 'Document Imaging' tab
Names searches are always done last name first, no commas. As in Smith John. Put in owner's last and first name in the appropriate boxes.
Next you'll get a listing of items under that person's name and whether it's a lease, deed, etc. Click "View" on the far left and that will take you to a copy of the document. You can contact the Tyler county clerk and order the documents, $1 a page, $1.50 for the first 2 pages.
Here is what someone else wrote about the older records
The Tyler County website is tricky. If you want deeds before the mid ninety's, you need to install a separate app on your desktop. Basically after the page loads and you click on document image button, you go to far right and right click on the button farthest right that says right click (there may be two). You then left click " remove this application". When that is finished you right click again on the button which has a new name..."Book/Page" and you have the option to install "WEB book and Page application onto this computer". This will install a link on your desktop which you can then use to find older deeds......
See if this helps.
For the old system you need to use the grantor and grantee indexes. For example, the person leasing his minerals is the grantor and the company leasing from him is the grantee. A person selling property is the grantor, the buyer is grantee.
Probably the other relatives signed a modification to allow pooling but possibly it is something about the flat rate lease.
The original lease might have been assigned several times. That could all be searched in the database, either the current or the old one.
Please ask more questions if this doesn't answer your questions, maybe someone else, or I, might have some advice.
Hi, Nancy! Thanks so much for your speedy reply. The link does not work so I googled and found it again directly. It still didn't work, said there is an error, etc. A few days ago I was able to download to my desktop the Tax Inquiry but I am not able to access the Document Imaging. I guess I am ultimately just going to have to contact an Oil and Gas attorney and give him all the information I have on the locations in two different counties. I have spent hours researching but cannot get my hands on an active lease, royalty info, heirs, etc. You know, the real details we all need to make intelligent decisions! Do you know of a good O&G attorney that works with O&G leases in Harrison and Tyler counties? I have emailed Mr. Nuttall and hope to receive a response. American Energy landman keeps calling and leaving message for me but I don't want to speak with him until I am better informed about what is going on in these areas. Please keep posting if you have new information. I know the low price of oil right now is affecting everything so I don't want to rush into signing until I have more info. Thanks for keeping us all informed here in this group!
The Tyler County site is working today. I am guessing that your are part of the Richard Stackpole lease on 80 acres from Book 23 pages 282-284, dated June 67 1894. There have been several modifications signed in recent years on that.
If so, you can either try to download the archive viewer by following the instructions above, or call Tyler County County Clerk and get information on ordering. I recently ordered from them, and for a 3 page document it would have cost $2.50.
It is a flat rate lease, $200 per year per gas well, 1/8 on the oil. Standard for the era.
I think Kyle Nuttall is very good. Sometimes he is pretty busy. Maybe call him, toward the end of the day.
There is a lot more to search. I like to see the documents assigning the leases from one company to another. I have found a couple of them involving this lease. You may have also. But the main thing is to get a copy of that original lease.
If you have found those modifications of the leases, you can take these names and start searching them to see if you can find how they acquired their shares. Maybe need to do genealogy research.
Around 1987 the WV legislature passed a law requiring new wells on old flat rate leases to be 1/8. Some companies are interpreting this now to say that royalty owners pay their share of the transportation costs for getting the gas to market. There is some controversy over this. However, any new well cannot be a $200 a year gas well. I don't think the oil royalty is affected, but there is not much oil in this part of the state (not a lot of oil in WV).
Nancy
Thanks Nancy! Yes that is the correct lease. I will try the download again this evening. Cheers!
Nancy you are the best! I still am not able to download the older documents BUT when I searched on American Energy I was able to see that my dad's only living sibling signed the lease 2/6/15 or around that time. She is the only one where LEASE is indicated, one other cousin apparently signed the amendment around that time as well based on what I see on the Cross. Their docs have not yet been uploaded but their names are there. The rest of the relatives, whoever they are, are not indicated for the remaining Stackpole listings. I am assuming that is because those additional relatives have not yet signed. I do hope my aunt negotiated and didn't just sign whatever was sent to her. Now that I know that a lease was signed/renewed I guess there is no room for negotiating just based on the amendment. Oh, by the way, Mr. Nuttall replied today as well. Recommended I call the landman and request the original lease from him. I will do that AND ask him for a copy of the recently signed lease. Thank you so much, you are incredible!
Nancy Mosley said:
The Tyler County site is working today. I am guessing that your are part of the Richard Stackpole lease on 80 acres from Book 23 pages 282-284, dated June 67 1894. There have been several modifications signed in recent years on that.
If so, you can either try to download the archive viewer by following the instructions above, or call Tyler County County Clerk and get information on ordering. I recently ordered from them, and for a 3 page document it would have cost $2.50.
It is a flat rate lease, $200 per year per gas well, 1/8 on the oil. Standard for the era.
I think Kyle Nuttall is very good. Sometimes he is pretty busy. Maybe call him, toward the end of the day.
There is a lot more to search. I like to see the documents assigning the leases from one company to another. I have found a couple of them involving this lease. You may have also. But the main thing is to get a copy of that original lease.
If you have found those modifications of the leases, you can take these names and start searching them to see if you can find how they acquired their shares. Maybe need to do genealogy research.
Around 1987 the WV legislature passed a law requiring new wells on old flat rate leases to be 1/8. Some companies are interpreting this now to say that royalty owners pay their share of the transportation costs for getting the gas to market. There is some controversy over this. However, any new well cannot be a $200 a year gas well. I don't think the oil royalty is affected, but there is not much oil in this part of the state (not a lot of oil in WV).
Nancy
There are other deeds involving this tract, as well as lease assignments. I hope you are able to get the database with the old deeds etc to download so you can search them. If you can't, I can tell you what I found, and you can order copies from Tyler County. Or find out from them how to print. It asks for a login, which I don't have any idea about. But calling the county clerk can get you information on ordering the copies. That is part of their county budget, the copy fees.
Yes, it appears the login is for internal use rather than public use which makes sense, otherwise they would be giving all of this information away, and the cost for the copies is very minimal compared to what I would pay out here in California for documents! LOL!
Great reply Nancy...thank you for your research...
Nancy Mosley said:
The Tyler County site is working today. I am guessing that your are part of the Richard Stackpole lease on 80 acres from Book 23 pages 282-284, dated June 67 1894. There have been several modifications signed in recent years on that.
If so, you can either try to download the archive viewer by following the instructions above, or call Tyler County County Clerk and get information on ordering. I recently ordered from them, and for a 3 page document it would have cost $2.50.
It is a flat rate lease, $200 per year per gas well, 1/8 on the oil. Standard for the era.
I think Kyle Nuttall is very good. Sometimes he is pretty busy. Maybe call him, toward the end of the day.
There is a lot more to search. I like to see the documents assigning the leases from one company to another. I have found a couple of them involving this lease. You may have also. But the main thing is to get a copy of that original lease.
If you have found those modifications of the leases, you can take these names and start searching them to see if you can find how they acquired their shares. Maybe need to do genealogy research.
Around 1987 the WV legislature passed a law requiring new wells on old flat rate leases to be 1/8. Some companies are interpreting this now to say that royalty owners pay their share of the transportation costs for getting the gas to market. There is some controversy over this. However, any new well cannot be a $200 a year gas well. I don't think the oil royalty is affected, but there is not much oil in this part of the state (not a lot of oil in WV).
Nancy