Recently talked with an oil & gas company and were given a lease and then the next day sent a memorandum. Why a memorandum? My guess is that perhaps memorandum is filed in courthouse. If this is the case why is the lease not filed, and which document is given legal prececdence? Can lessor insist that lease be recorded, and if so, is there a need for memorandum? Our group is starting to negotiate with different oil compaies.
What is in the memorandum?
Victor, the memorandum is recorded to give notice to third parties so the lease and it's particulars can remain secret. This only benefits the lessee unless you believe in the theory that they will give you a better deal than anyone else because they can keep it secret. They would need to convince me that I was getting a better deal than anyone else, verified by courthouse search.
As I understand it, if any changes are made on the standard lease form of that company, such as a higher royalty or no gas storage or many other things, most of the time the company files a memorandum of oil and gas lease which includes some basic info but doesn’t detail any changes.
Hi Victor, Here is a link to Uslandrecords website
https://www.uslandrecords.com/uslr/UslrApp/index.jsp
select West Virginia then select Ritchie for the county. It is the website for almost all documents recorded in the county clerk's office since July 1985. If you search under EQT and choose even just the last month you will see a lot of entries. The information provided says the type of document. Some say memorandum, some O&GL (oil and gas lease). You have to pay to see the actual document, but this will give you an idea of how many times Memorandum is the description vs O&GL.