I’m relatively new to mineral rights ownership so you will have to forgive me if I am asking dumb questions here. How is it possible to determine the precise location of where your mineral ownership applies by looking at a tract description within a mineral deed?
Here is an example of a mineral interest I own within San Jacinto County TX.
From what I can see, there are some active wells present within those particular tracts. I am not currently being paid by any of the operators associated with those active wells. By looking at the description located in the filed deed, how is it possible to know if I am supposed to be owed royalties from those that are actively producing? The descriptions I have come across in most of the deeds I’ve looked at don’t really give you enough information to able to pinpoint the exact area within a tract you are entitled to royalties from.
Sorry if this question has already been answered here somewhere. I couldn’t find any existing topics out there for this.
Hi ADS-OG, welcome to the forum. You are on the right track, but will probably have to obtain copies of the older pages referenced in your deed from the county records. Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be a cost free way to do this on-line, and the on-line records may not go back to the 1940’s. A landman or often a title company can often find those pages for you for a fee. Out of about 2510 acres contained in those three abstracts, you own around 106 acres, so you will need to see the older descriptions to get more detailed location information. Once you have that, you’ll have to compare your holdings to the leased areas of the active wells to see if there is any overlap.
Pete, I don’t think I’ve ever ordered anything from quite so many years back, and I am generally ordering from the Lea County Clerk in NM. That being said, am wondering: Could ADS-OG make a good first step by finding the phone number of the county clerk for San Jacinto County, and call to order the three documents recorded in Volume 42 at pages 308 and 310 and 311, and the survey recorded in Volume 35 at pages 554-560? (When I order from Lea County, they will email documents to me but they are sometimes shrunk and very hard to read, so I like to pay the $1 per page or whatever it is to get them to print and mail me paper copies.)
Out_of_State, as you note asking the clerk might work. Usually the guideline is that the County Clerks won’t do searches for you, but maybe a specific book and page doesn’t always count as a search. Often, when you get the first reference, you may find you need more as you work back through the chain of title.
Thanks for all of the helpful information! I am fairly sure I have a copy of those original documents. I am going to look through what I have here. If I can’t locate them I will try and work with the county clerk to track them down. I really appreciate your quick responses. For the future, would the original referenced documents from the deeds description include more specific info for finding what you own?
Hi ADS_OG, it isn’t guaranteed, but hopefully and typically yes, the earlier
documents will provide the needed information to fill in the missing location
details. Checking these earlier documents
is at least a good starting point.
I have had good service from Lea county people. But you have to tell them what you want. That is the job of the index that is online ( you do the searching). I would try to find the index . if it exists, for San Jacinto county. There is a learning curve and it takes time.
Here’s a link where you can access the indexes for the San Jacinto County deed records. At this point it looks like the records are only searchable online back to 1966 but might be worth trying. Searching and viewing documents is free but there is a per page charge if you want to print them.
