Dominion probably has assigned or sold that lease to CNX/Consol. I believe they sold most or all of their properties a few years ago to concentrate on their pipelines and related things.
Does the letter you have state the lease number or anything like that?
If you go to the WV Office of Oil and Gas database to this page
you can try Dominion and Consol and CNX. Doing a quick search brings up entries for each one.
The Antero landman should be able to put you in touch with a Dominion or Consol/CNX landman about that. The company may have back royalties for your family.
Sandy, I am in a similar situation. I have a post in this forum if you are interested in more background info. First, Antero required that my siblings sign affidavits of heirship as it had been proven that we were heirs to my great-grandfather's mineral rights that my grandmother had inherited. My grandmother, who signed a lease in 1960, passed away in 1991. After following the good advice in this forum, we were able to determine that CNX was the current lessee. The CNX analyst that I talked to told me that they had "unknown" listed for our 1/6 of the royalties. So somehow my grandmother's interest slipped through the cracks. CNX also required electronic copies of the affidavits for heirship (you may also have to do that) and now they are "running the numbers." We do know there are 2 active wells that were drilled in the 90's still producing today. But there have been 3-4 operators; namely, in this order TREK, Dominion, Targa, CNX/Consol. I will post after I hear back from CNX regarding any prior royalties.
When I first contacted CNX, they gave me the well API numbers. That is good information to have. I then used the resource that Nancy gave you to get the information.
We are still educating ourselves regarding lease modifications but have decided we will seek legal advice before signing any lease modification for Antero. Tons of great advice and resources on that topic in this forum.
Sandra, first of all, have you or your Grandmother received any royalty on the original well, and who if anyone has been paying taxes on the mineral interest?? The original well is a vertical well, and Antero wants to pool your interest along with others to generate at least 640 acres in order to drill a Horizontal Well, that if drilled will create much more revenue for you. CNX ( purchased most of Dominion's interest) and has now assigned your interest to Antero. Antero is now the contact and you should find out all your questions from them. What is Antero offering you to sign the lease, and somewhere in the lease they will show a district, map # and Partial #, I am curious as I have a modification to a lease coming my way as we speak. Other members a lot smarter then me will be able to give you more advice. Good Luck
Robin, Thank you so much. This is all so confusing. I'm just trying to stay on top of things because
I think the royalties for my grandmothers heirs remained unpaid somehow. I have been told there was
a active vertical well so maybe I can track this down. Thanks again.
Robin said:
Sandy, I am in a similar situation. I have a post in this forum if you are interested in more background info. First, Antero required that my siblings sign affidavits of heirship as it had been proven that we were heirs to my great-grandfather's mineral rights that my grandmother had inherited. My grandmother, who signed a lease in 1960, passed away in 1991. After following the good advice in this forum, we were able to determine that CNX was the current lessee. The CNX analyst that I talked to told me that they had "unknown" listed for our 1/6 of the royalties. So somehow my grandmother's interest slipped through the cracks. CNX also required electronic copies of the affidavits for heirship (you may also have to do that) and now they are "running the numbers." We do know there are 2 active wells that were drilled in the 90's still producing today. But there have been 3-4 operators; namely, in this order TREK, Dominion, Targa, CNX/Consol. I will post after I hear back from CNX regarding any prior royalties.
When I first contacted CNX, they gave me the well API numbers. That is good information to have. I then used the resource that Nancy gave you to get the information.
We are still educating ourselves regarding lease modifications but have decided we will seek legal advice before signing any lease modification for Antero. Tons of great advice and resources on that topic in this forum.
Hi Sandy, it sounds like there are several things involved in your situation. If you can get a contact name from Antero for a CNX or Dominion landman (analyst) that would be a good place to start. You need an API number for the well and a copy of the lease involving your grandmother. Antero should be able to give you tax map information on where this is. Someone from one or the other company should be able to help you to get your grandmother’s interest transferred to her heirs with Doddridge county. Please read Robin’s discussion on this forum. Lots of similarities there. And please feel free to ask questions here. All of us are learning about this complicated business.
Nancy: Do you know what the tax law on Land and mineral rights in Doddridge County are? In the old day's when taxes went delinquent, after so many ( unknown to me) years the title was auctioned off to the highest bidder on the Courthouse steps, that's how my Grandfather acquired a lot of his interest. but reading here, their are so many like Robin and Sandy that it makes you wonder if you have to pay taxes at all, and if thats the case then the County is missing out on a lot of revenue." Maybe you and I should join the don't pay taxes club".
Arnold from what I know about Ritchie county when somebody is on the tax rolls and gets a tax bill and doesn’t pay it on time (sometime in April or May I think) his name is put in the local paper at least twice. The person can pay up then maybe with a fine. If not the property is listed again in the paper saying it will be sold at auction sometime around October. Prospctive buyers can do their own title search or hire it done. They have to provide names and addresses of people to be notified of impending sale. Then the auction. Then the delinquent owner still has maybe 18 months before the sale is final. Notice at the beginning I said people on the tax rolls. Often when an owner dies one person will keep up paying taxes but when addresses change or the next one dies and that heir has no idea that grandpa had any property in Ritchie county … You see how it happens.
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Thanks Nancy, In other words, the tax collector is pretty lazy and won't pursue the delinquent taxes until a landman checks title and wants to drill a well on said property. You better believe that County and State will be on your case in a minute, and maybe even bill for back taxes.
Sometimes things don’t get recorded correctly when property is sold retaining minerals. I have seen that several times. Then the mineral owner doesn’t get a tax bill and forgets about it. Years later a landman does the deed research and finds the real owner or at least the owner at the time. Grandpa sold the farm and retained the minerals and moved to Ohio and forgot to tell the county his new address and they didn’t even know they needed to find him since it was recorded wrong. Then in 2014 his 20 grandkids inherited but didn’t know it until landman comes.
Probably in cases like Robin’s and Sandy’s the grandpa signed the lease and was paid. Then he died and left all to his several kids. One of them keeps up with the paperwork collecting the royalty and sends the siblings their share and pays county taxes. Then that one dies and his kids don’t know much about it and forget that their relatives are also owners or some other such situation. Nothing sneaky just things happen. Then the landman finds you.
I think what Nancy's describing makes a lot of sense in my case. I've learned that the surface and mineral rights owners that are recorded are descendants. The taxes are being paid and they undoubtedly have been, and are, receiving royalties. This week I wrote them letters, and hopefully I receive some responses and perhaps the mystery will be solved as to how and why my grandmother slipped through the cracks at some point after the oil well drilled in 1960 was abandoned. And soon I should have legible copies of the leases.
I’m an attorney here in WV and I do a lot of oil and gas work. Just some general advice about Modifications. Antero will offer between $0 and $500 to sign. That’s not a per acre amount. You can work them up, but you’ll have to be patient. I’ve gotten them up to $1,500 recently, and once got $4,000. They were desperate that time. See if you can do better.
Make sure you get a No Warranty of Title clause and an Indemnification clause. Those will keep you from getting in trouble, at least to the extent that can be done at this time.
There are other clauses that you can get, but it’s pretty dependent on the exact facts of your situation.
Also, strike anything that isn’t directly related to pooling, our at least get a reasonable explanation for any extra language. That bit of advice actually applies to all of the language in the agreement. Don’t settle for a general explanation of anything. So your best to verify their explanations, too. There’s a lot of good advice here on this forum.
Thank you, Kyle, for your post. My siblings and I definitely have plans to retain an attorney to review the lease and the modification. Too much legal language for us to attempt to interpret. But based what's in this forum we will know what questions to ask, and will be able to articulate our needs and wishes somewhat intelligently.
Regarding taxes, I was able to talk to someone in the Tax Assessor's Office. She told me not to worry about "back taxes" (Nancy, your theory was correct). She said that this situation is very common these days. Approximately 2 years after we start receiving any royalties, they will send us a tax ticket. She also verified that the others with interests were receiving royalties, although small (and therefore paying taxes).
Thanks, Robin, for the update on your county tax situation. The counties should benefit from all the "found" "formerly lost" mineral owners! as will the mineral owners of course. I'm curious what your relatives say. It would be exciting to get to know distant relatives that you didn't know you had.
Thanks for all that info, Kyle. These are very important things to know for lease modifications as well as leases. Most of us are not attorneys and need all the help we can get in dealing with these companies who have their own legal department!
Here is a crazy fact. You didn't have to be a direct heir to get in on royalty checks back in those days. In some cases I think they appointed a family member to be an agent to take care of mineral checks. I posted earlier in one column about what happened in our family. Back years ago, checks were sent out to family members who were not in line as direct heirs. Some were cousins and some were aunts. I do not know how they did things in families back in the early days pertaining to royalties and mineral property. Now days it has gotten much more detailed but a lot of people don't have any info on how they obtained the minerals. Back then the need to know was pretty tight lipped even within the family. This is why some people do not know who is paying taxes or who is getting royalty. The filing and recording and proof of was not done very well in some cases. One reason could be because it was just a formality then and not much money was involved in a lot of cases. Some would call it a nuisance to drive all the way to town to have something put on file for pennies on a dollar. They may even had to use a horse and buggy to get there. Hard for us to imagine what was important about that. Forward to now and there is a monumental difference. Bad part is you can't go back and make all those records easy to make out and figure out.
DT, We are considering two lease modifications ... one is actually from a lease that appointed my grandmother's cousin as "Attorney in Fact" to set her up to disburse royalties. She's been deceased since 1986, and through the years she knew how to reach my grandmother (they corresponded regularly). And she also had my mother's address. I don't think there were much, if any, royalties being received during this time period. I was able to learn that a well that was drilled in 1960 was abandoned. Then in the 90's two horizontal wells were drilled ... those wells are still active ... so the lease in the 60's is still valid. So who knows what happened along the way ... but your crazy facts make sense to me!
Just wondering, If they abandoned the well and did nothing to keep the lease in effect it should have been void, unless there were multiple wells on it. If there was a producing well for 30 years then I would understand them still holding the lease. Did you ever get a good copy of the lease and read it from that 1960 well? I would find it hard for them to pay royalty on a single abandoned well or hold a well in production for thirty years without some compensation.
The lease reads, "this lease shall remain in force for the term of ten years from this date and as long thereafter as oil or gas, or either of them, is produced from the said lands by the said lessee, its successors ad assigns." So there must have been some ongoing activity that I am unaware of. All I have to go on is what I recall from conversations with my mother that took place some years ago. She said that my grandmother received checks from a well, but "it wasn't for much." Then she said my grandmother never mentioned it again. But my mother didn't mention this to me until my grandmother had long passed. The Antero researcher told me that this lease was still valid. I will post as I receive any additional information.
I would think there were at least another working well on that lease for it to be still in effect. I would not trust them with their word. Who has been getting a royalty check since the lesser passed away? If the lease is still active someone has to be getting a check. The lease could have expired??? Need more info on how they kept that lease going. The company has the info and I would make them show me all of the paperwork or I would say No.