No division order or any contact from company on a producing well

Ownership and Title
1

Bear with me on this long story. I hope it is in the right place.

I have rights to Pittsburgh County OK land.

To go back I inherited the mineral rights in 67 and leased them multiple times. So I assume all legal issues on the rights are settled. I leased to Chesapeake several years ago and subsequently learned via court documents concerning spacing in 2011 that Newfield Energy was intending to produce gas there. I spoke in late summer that year to a Newfield man, a landman I think, who said drilling was happening and a second well was planned, for which I also received court documents.

Then I heard nothing. I assumed that with the price crash that production never happened. Then this spring I got one of those solicitations to buy the rights so I called. I was put in touch with the land man who shocked my by saying there were producing wells on the land. I said, in hope of learning more, if he would still make an offer to buy the rights. He said he would get back with me but never did.

I have called Newfield multiple times.Only getting to the Owners Relation Dept.,or some such name. I asked to be contacted by the Division Dept., again,and again, and again. No call back. I asked once to talk to a landman and was surprised with a call back. He said he remembered my name, would investigate and get back with me. He didn't.

What is my recourse in this situation? With the state or whoever.

Does anyone have a theory why this has happened.

2

Robert,

How many mineral acres are you talking about and when you inherited this interest was it conveyed to you by deed or a probate done?

3

Good question above, the answer may be important. I would also ask if you have moved since your last lease, and or if you have kept your address up to date with the lessee. If you have moved and didn't update, they may not look for you very hard. If they had your present address all along, they have had plenty of time.

Robert, If a colossal mistake has been made, very likely, nobody will want to get back to you, who would? At best it's going to be alot of aggravation and they will likely have to pay money that they have been using free of charge. Possibly 12% interest is owed if you have marketable title, 6% if you don't, not fully familliar with the Ok statute, it could be annual. 3 years worth of interest? The point is that if they talk to you, they are going to have to pay out money, maybe alot more money than just your royalty. They might hope that you will just go away.

I do not expect oil companies to act like any normal business, that might want to fix a problem and get it behind them, In my opinion they are the best example of the how can we fool them today and breath a sigh of relief at quitting time or on friday. Their motto should be don't put off to tomorrow what you reasonably put off to next year.

I would see a lawyer about writing a demand letter with tracking, at the same time asking if there were any title requirements, just in case,. One letter to owner relations and one letter to their legal dept. Many people do not want to go to a lawyer to have a letter written and they may actually get paid 6 months or more down the line. To me the cost of having a lawyer write the letter is negligible in comparison to the time and aggravation of calling twice a week and never having anyone get back to me for six months or more. I don't know how long you have been trying so far but I would guess it's been more than a month. Good luck.

4

OK, thanks. I did not move and I have a sister with an identical interest who also never heard a thing. However I would have thought that the state or OK Commerce Commission might help offer some remedy since there are statutory obligations, or I would think so anyway.

I had one bizarre theory. We had distant cousins with the same interests, who died and the heirs sold the rights at just about this time. I daydreamed that buyer, somehow, got ours too, stole it. Not likely and don't know how it would be done. By the way Newfield says it has no record of us. Pretty odd as we were named in all the spacing, alteration of spacing, and additional well permit court documents.

5

It is fractional acreage. I believe it was probate but I am ignorant of such things. Let me put it this way. My grandmother had it in her will for her three grandchildren. I and one sister still have ours. The other sold the rights several years ago.

Mineral Joe said:

Robert,

How many mineral acres are you talking about and when you inherited this interest was it conveyed to you by deed or a probate done?

6

Robert, probate would give you marketable title. Did I tell you you have a great first name? I share it, and so does a distant relative of mine. I believe that an oil company attributed my interest to a distant relative with similar name once. I laugh at the accuracy of the oil companies title work, because the person making the final determination, has probably never seen the actual documents, they are working from what a landman said, it sounds hillarious if it's not you it happened to.

7

When you say fractional do you mean less than one acre? r w is on the right tract in that it sounds like they may have your ownership attributed to someone else. It may be that the right documents were never recorded in the county and they found this cousin and have him as interest owner for you and your sisters share. Normally an operator will require at least an affidavit of heirship so you might look for a lease and affidavit recorded in your cousins name, look online under your cousins name and in that tract. Some companies won't deal with someone that they don't have as an owner such as your case.

8

Robert, I would not start with Newfield but instead hire a landman to run a single person chain of title and make copies of the pertinent docs and send them to you. If you call the County Clerk they can probably give you a name & tele # of a local broker.It will probably take less than half a day and $300 plus or minus.

Once you have the pertinent docs you know the story. At that time you can make a decision as to whether or not to hire an Attorney to pursue legal means.

If you send me the docs I will be glad to look through them gratis.

Regards,

Dirk Dieterich

9

I finally got a response from Newfield today. I was told their title attorneys determined we were strangers to title.

I don't doubt it, even if I don't know the details. You see this all came from people over the years giving me little check for leasing, my name on court docs,and another sister who was solicited to sell the rights and someone bought them. Which made me think they were legit.

It's less than one acre each. Hardly a big deal, but still.......

I inherited from my mother (1965) who inherited from her father (1958) who inherited from an aunt (1932). At least that's the story we have. Perhaps impossible to trace. What do you think?

Dirk Dieterich said:

Robert, I would not start with Newfield but instead hire a landman to run a single person chain of title and make copies of the pertinent docs and send them to you. If you call the County Clerk they can probably give you a name & tele # of a local broker.It will probably take less than half a day and $300 plus or minus.

Once you have the pertinent docs you know the story. At that time you can make a decision as to whether or not to hire an Attorney to pursue legal means.

If you send me the docs I will be glad to look through them gratis.

Regards,

Dirk Dieterich

Western Mineral Consultants

10

certainly not worth attorney fees but worth a little of your time perhaps. Did you tell the individual with Newfield you spoke with about your mother/father/aunt and give them relatives names as it might be in your grandfathers name or your aunts husbands name or his fathers name and on and on . I imagine there is a pooling order, I'd get the pooling order and see if you recognize any relatives names on it or non relatives from your aunts husbands side.

11

The first contact I mentioned was a voice mail. I spoke to them and gave the names, They had my grandfathers name so now that is connected to us. . Not sure about my mothers, the path to us. I am not sure what they need actually.

Not sure what a pooling order is. The other relatives are almost certainly out of the picture. Or I mean their heirs. They were very old when this arose and are now passed.

Did I mention that another sister sold her rights 4 or 5 years ago after being solicited by mail. Around $1700/acre. Would someone actually buy this without certainty that it was good?

Mineral Joe said:

certainly not worth attorney fees but worth a little of your time perhaps. Did you tell the individual with Newfield you spoke with about your mother/father/aunt and give them relatives names as it might be in your grandfathers name or your aunts husbands name or his fathers name and on and on . I imagine there is a pooling order, I'd get the pooling order and see if you recognize any relatives names on it or non relatives from your aunts husbands side.

12

Robert,

I’m sorry to hear about your situation. I suspected that you may not own the minerals (at least in Newfield’s opinion) when you mentioned that you had not heard anything prior to production. Oklahoma’s Corporation Commission requires that all owners, leased or unleased, be given notice prior to a pooling hearing. However, they leave it to the applicant (i.e. Newfield) to determine who those people are, so if Newfield doesn’t identify you as an owner you wouldn’t have gotten notice.

One important point you should understand is that just because an oil company (or a few) determines your mineral ownership doesn’t meant they are correct. Your situation is a perfect example - Newfield doesn’t think you own the minerals, but several other companies in the past (and presumably a mineral buyer) thought you might. One of those camps is obviously wrong.

I would be suspicious of the outlier in your situation. Several companies in the past have made independent determinations of mineral ownership in the property, and Newfield is the only one (that we know of) to determine that you don’t own the minerals. That’s at least a decent indication that Newfield may be wrong. I definitely would not take Newfield’s word that I don’t own the minerals in this case.

Ultimately, you can only rely on your own independent determination of your ownership (which should be supplied by a qualified professional). Having that information will help you recognize when your interest is not being calculated properly. And, if you dispute Newfield’s claim that you don’t own any minerals, they have no obligation to explain to you how they made that determination. Rather, the burden will be on you to prove to them that they are wrong. When that happens, most companies will try to correct the situation in a manner that is fair to the true owner, but that’s a bridge best crossed once you come to it.

If you choose to try and convince them of your ownership, you have a few choices. At minimum, you can try to research the ownership history of the mineral rights on your own for a nominal cost plus your time in the courthouse. Far better would be to hire a qualified Landman with ample experience with Oklahoma mineral titles to give you “abstract” of all the documents they find from the history of your property’s mineral ownership. Assuming the Landman is competent, that will probably give you a good indication of what you own, if anything, although this will probably cost at least a couple thousand dollars to do. Last, you can hire an attorney to make a legal opinion of the mineral ownership based on that abstract, which will be thousands more, but probably isn’t necessary unless Newfield disputes your landman’s determination and you intend to sue them.

Of course, another significant option is to strongly consider selling if you can find a willing buyer and a price you can live with, especially if you truly doubt your ownership. Just be aware that if you do sell, you will want to Quitclaim the minerals or otherwise explicitly state in the deed that you don’t warrant ownership of the minerals, even for return of the purchase price. That will save you a lot of trouble down the road if title is no good.

I hope things eventually get resolved in your favor. Good luck.

13

Even though some have told you to spend the money, I would find it extremely hard to justify spending the money to hire an attorney or landman on less than 1 acre. Did they say they leased or pooled your grandfathers interest? If they have your grandfathers as an owner I would do an affidavit of heirship and send to them after it's recorded. If any of your relatives owned but did not lease they would have been force pooled and their name would be in the pooling order, I would have looked or sent you the order but I don't see where you list any names and not even a legal description of the tract and well your asking about.

14

Now there is the same wise recommendation I've heard before, hire an attorney, on less than 1 acre of Pittsburgh County minerals and I think it needs to be told again, record an affidavit of heirship.

15

My post wasn’t meant to suggest that Robert hire a professional (or not), just lay out the options so he could decide what’s best for him. Nonetheless, i agree with Joe: spending any money on 1 acre isn’t worth it unless the minerals are world-class or have already accrued substantial amounts of unpaid money.

16

If there were probates done and they had half way decent attorneys then the JE would have been recorded in the county and as he wrote it doesn't appear so done or he'd be leased and in pay. If you hire an attorney or speak to an attorney or even look at an attorney, you will owe the attorney more than the minerals are worth on less than 1 acre so why does everyone keep mentioning attorney, attorney, attorney, they charge by the minute , every minute (I wonder if some are charging me by the second). Many companies will pay on AOH and it will only cost $13 recording fee stating grandfathers heirs.

17

Now there you go assuming and you assumed incorrectly as I never once thought that if a probate was done it was in the county where the minerals are, I meant and it is obvious I mean a probate anywhere otherwise I would have stated that county. There you go assuming again as I never thought anything about a title abstractor. If a probate were done and the tract was listed in inventory a half way decent attorney, as I previously stated, would have recorded it in the county. Recording an AOH will not open a person up to criminal charges unless they commit fraud and I would never tell someone to falsify a document or whatever other criminal activity your suggesting he'd be doing by recording an AOH but I will not assume what you mean. Chances are the company will pay on AOH which will cost $13 and be relatively simple and not time consuming and a 5th grader can do it without winging it, I am sorry things might be so difficult for you, or he could spend more money and time than it is worth. As for assumptions, some things are obvious to most, sorry not to all and to those we need draw a picture.

18

There would be nothing criminal about filing an affidavit that contained false information unless the affiant knowingly gave the false information. As always, with any criminal action, the burden of proof would be on the state. The affiant would be innocent until the state could prove that he knowingly filed an affidavit with the false information. He wouldn't need to be familiar with any laws of descent and distribution in order to give information on the heirship of a particular person or persons. Most affiants aren't.

19

I fail to see how filing an AOH exposes someone to criminal liability. Generally all an AOH states is the name of the deceased, the date of their death, their marital status, whether or not they died testate, their past spouses, and identifies their living children. Whether or not there was a prior probate of the deceased's estate - known or unknown - is irrelevant, other than the fact that it would render the AOH pointless. But recording a pointless affidavit is far from a crime.

As with any affidavit, an AOH is a sworn statement of certain facts given under oath, nothing more. An affiant can only face liability if the affidavit contains statements that he knew to be false when he made them. In that one instance, the affiant could be liable for (1) civil or criminal penalties for perjury, and (2) any damages incurred by third persons as a result of the false statements.

20

It wouldn't be pointless if the will was never probated, or if the will wasn't probated within the required statutory period, or if the will was successfully attacked as being invalid. Improperly witnessed, undue influence on testamentary intent would be a few examples where a will could be contested.

No one could ever be criminally liable for filing an AOH that was not factually correct unless they did so knowingly.