My mother has just recently gotten a call from someone that was contracted through Antero to search ownership of mineral rights for a parcel in Tyler Co. WV. Long story short, apparently my paternal grandfather who died in 1932 owned these rights that no one in the family knew about and through an Affidavit of Heirship and tracking down bunches of Wills, now belong to my mother. (Lots of age differences in husbands and wives so yes, my mother is still living and my father died a while ago and his father died when he was a child.) Anyway, I can see online that the Affidavit is now recorded in Tyler County court records and we have not heard anything else from anyone. What do we do now? After doing a little snooping online and looking through old deeds, I THINK I know where the parcel is and who owns it, but I don't know what to do as far as should we contact someone about getting the rights in Mom's name? We have no documentation they exist other than I kept all emails and copies of documents from the contractor working for Antero. Help!
I'm no expert but since nobody else has responded I'll take a swing at this.
The short answer is you will have to hire an attorney to get a clear deed of the mineral rights. Depending on the health of your mother I would also suggest adding you as a co-owner at the same time. Basically an attorney will go do the same thing that Antero already has done and verify there are no other rightful owners. Then file deed with the county and eventually they will accept it and transferring legal ownership of those mineral rights to whomever is the rightful heir. This will likely cost you several thousand dollars in attorney's fees. It cost me about $700 to get an attorney to spend a couple hours to review my lease agreement and spend an hour on the phone with me.
One option may be to agree to sign the affidavit and lease with Antero if they share with you their research of who the owner is. You will need to find an attorney who will agree to this and agree to take someone else's research in order to file the deed with the county. If Antero really needs the rights to that plot of land then they may be willing to do this. It can't hurt to ask. In either case you will need to get your own attorney to look everything over and give you peace of mind.
Some things to consider: What is the net acreage you own? The going rate for a lease these days is between $1500-2500 per net acre. So if you only own a few net acres then you will spend a few thousand in legal fees and only get about the same amount from the lease.
Again, I am no expert, but from what I have learned is that mineral rights companies make every reasonable effort to prove they found the correct owner (your mother in this case). If your mother signs a lease she may receive a bonus amount for signing it plus any royalties if they drill. Say 5 years from now they are drilling and your mother becomes wealthy from the royalty payments? If someone else could come along and prove that they are the rightful owners of those mineral rights then they could sue your mother for all that income plus attorney fees. Again, I am not a lawyer and there may be some kind of time limitation that someone has to contest ownership. Talk to a good attorney who can guide you through this process.
My 2 cents, good luck!
Jim is correct that ideally you would have a title opinion by a qualified attorney. However, if you have the information from Antero and are able to have a lease with a "no warranty of title" clause then there is less danger of your being liable if the eventual thorough title search turns up someone else.
If you have the information from the landman about your grandfather's ownership of the minerals, and you know that your mother is the only heir to those rights from your grandfather (I guess she was heir of your father and he was only heir of his father? shown in wills?) then that part is straightforward. The difficulty might be if somehow your grandfather didn't actually own the minerals maybe because someone back several decades had withheld minerals when selling the property to your grandfather or the one he bought from etc.
I think the first step would be checking with the Tyler County courthouse (probably their records room or county clerk's office) and asking about what paperwork they need to show that what your grandfather owned, has transferred as it has to your mother, and put her on the tax rolls. Then you can trace the title back through the deeds index as far as you can. If you don't find problems then you could feel confident that signing a lease (with the help of a good oil and gas attorney) without warranting the title and with language that if Antero pays your mother for something she doesn't own, that she doesn't have to repay, then go for it. Of course there are a lot of steps here, but start with the Tyler County clerk who handles estates. There is a procedure that needs to be followed in West Virginia for this, and that clerk should be able to give you the details.
Since you have wills that sounds easy. The probate clerk should be able to get you the form the state needs to change ownership, first from Grandfather to Father, then from Father to Mother. Each transfer takes several steps. You could get them the appropriate copies of the wills (some special version: my sister had to do it for our father's then our mother's estates recently; both resided and died in outside West Virginia and had their estates probated there but had to do a separate estate administration in WV since they (Dad first then to Mom then to my sister and me) had owned real property (oil and gas rights) in West Virginia (Ritchie County). There needs to be an inventory (maybe just the property you have been contacted about). The clerk can help with that. Also death certificates. Clerk can tell you.
Lots involved. A good problem to have. Please feel free to ask questions. We might have the answers here. I have done quite a few things to understand the oil and gas "business" that our family has been part of for over a century (when greatgrandfather first purchased property in WV.)
45 acres is not huge but definitely enough to get you some decent treatment by the oil and gas company.
Perhaps the wells stopped producing so the checks stopped and the lease expired. Perhaps you can find the lease your grandfather signed online?
Nancy
Hi, you go to the county court house, all the deeds will be there. Wills and so forth, this is all public record. My family passed in 1901, I just found out I owed minerals, so long ago doesn't really matter. Good luck, and it is time consuming lol.......Heirs will be added with a new lease according to what and who owns.
I found these things you can read. The Kanawha county of course is not Tyler but I expect Tyler has a similar plan. I saw a form which includes the instructions from the state of WV which my sister had to use in administering our parents' estates
http://www.kanawha.us/commission/fiduciary/
The following is the WV Code on this, a lot to wade through
http://law.justia.com/codes/west-virginia/2009/44/44.html
That should get you started. I think there is a difference in Probate or Ancillary Administration of an estate in WV. If the decedent died in WV things go one way. If the decedent died outside of WV and the estate has been probated (with a will) in that state, then there is no need to Probate in WV unless the estate is quite large. You would have to sort all this out first, to know the facts, before talking with an attorney so at least start sorting things out.
About doing your own research on the deeds etc. I think waiting a few more weeks and having access to them online sounds like a great plan. I can help you with a plan. I have done this in Ritchie and the process is the same. Start with the one who owned the property and look in the grantor grantee index. Etc.
About leasing: once you get officially contacted with a lease, start investigating leasing terms etc. Lots of good info here. Before signing anything, always best to have an attorney's advise at least. Probably a different attorney than any that you might need (if you do) for estate administration.
M S HARNER said:
... from what I understand, I shouldn't jump at the first company that contacts us anyway right? There are more than one company looking in the same areas up there?
It is a huge land-grab right now. The oil companies are trying to put together 640 acre contiguous acre plots. So for each tract of land that is less than 640 acres and it may be owned by multiple people. They would need to get a signed lease from each owner of the piece of that puzzle to assemble their 640 acres. They will either re-sell all of those leases as 1 package to another company that will drill or drill themselves.
The more interest and the larger the plot you own the more value your tract has to the oil companies. You need to decide how valuable your tract is to you and if holding out is worth it. If you do get a call from a landman then you could also contact other companies and ask them if they are interested. Two weeks after I signed my first lease I got a call from a competing oil company that offered me 20% more. Unfortunately I already had a signed lease with the first company so I couldn't do anything about it. However, I don't think their offer was genuine as they probably got my name and number from the filing of the first company and they were more interested in getting the details of the lease from me (which I didn't give as only a memorandum was filed at the court).
The danger also in holding out is that oil companies are trying to get the easiest deals done first. So if you do not sign with the first company it may be a while before another company comes back around looking to lease your interest. It all depends if they need that particular tract of land to complete their 640 acre plot. If they don't then it doesn't hold any value to them.
I think another aspect of the game is companies are just trying to get what they can signed so they can prevent other oil companies from getting it. Their competitors don't need the entire 640 acres, only one small interest in that 640 plot to stop them from drilling.
Only you can decide if money now is worth it or pass on the offer. When I asked my attorney he said due to my minority interest in the 640 acre plot then what I was offered was fair.