My wife’s grandfather passed down mineral rights , in Kingfisher OK, to his children, then those are now passed down the grandchildren. This makes 3 family branches.
In a recent new well with an OK city oil company, each of the 3 branches got an amount, that amount was split accordingly to the deed and how many were in that family. My wife’s family got that same equal amount and my wife is supposed to get 1/4 or 25% of that family amount. She instead only got 6% of the family branch amount.
My wife’s cousin in another branch shared her revenue statement with us and called the landman for the well in Kingfisher. She confirmed what each family was supposed to get, and that my wife’s amount was only 6% of that amount.
We immediately sent an email to owners relations of the oil company showing our deed and explaining they made a mistake. We got no reply to our email. We then called to confirm they got the email, we briefly explained what the problem was , and they twisted our words and said we sounded confused, this told me they were already being defensive since we were very clear.
This oil company in OK city recently changed their name, but previously had a bad reputation. We have solid evidence, but we don’t trust they would have caught this error that was in their favor. We only contacted them because we felt legally that is what we should do, give them a chance to resolve it. The oil company said they would assign an investigator to this case.
What does someone do when an oil company does this to your royalty payments?
I left out specific details of the name of the oil company and the dollar amounts, but this is a major mistake costing us tens of thousands.
I did find out a claim can be filed with Oklahoma Corporation Commission. This claim is what lawyers help a mineral rights owner file with royalty disputes.
But it can be filled out directly by owners on their website.
You need an attorney or a good landman to sort out the title issues. Just because you have a deed does not necessarily mean the chain of title is correct before that deed was filed.
It is also a good idea to send your information by certified mail return receipt to the operator. Send copies of any probate documents or deeds. Certified mail gives you a paper trail. Keep copies of everything that you send. Sometimes one little word in a deed can make a huge difference in how it is interpreted. Ask the operator nicely for a copy of the paragraph of their title opinion that gives the smaller amount versus your larger amount.
This advice relates to all parties who contact oil companies.
Division Order analysts are often overworked and make mistakes.
With that said, when contacting oil company, it is better to keep reminding them of the underlying problem. Don’t assume they will remember.
Another way to put it is if one contacts an oil company and lays out all the facts with all the documents Now, contrast that with somebody else who contacts them and that person says there is a problem with this (unidentified) well in Oklahoma and it is not right, and there are no docs and no underlying facts, the Division Order analyst is going to fix the first problem first because they can figure it out. They don’t have to go digging to find the underlying problem.