Over the past 2-3 years, family members have received phone calls from companies who are willing to help us recover some royalties that are accruing on an oil lease my deceased dad owned. We have some information–but apparently not enough. My question–if these companies have a pretty good idea of what is there and want to help us (for a chunk of it of course) then should we just keep digging? The amount of money is not huge but I hate to leave it to the state. I thought of a cousin’s husband who is a landman and might be able to help. I’d rather pay him if need be! what to do?
Condolences on your loss. The first thing to do is contact the Unclaimed Funds at the OK Treasurer’s office. They may be holding money for the proper heirs. They will take out the state taxes which is quite normal. Why pay someone else who will take a cut out of it even further for finding the easy part. If you know the location of the minerals, you can post the location here (Section-township-range) and we can look up who the operator may be and then you can contact them directly if there are any other funds being held by them. The data is very public and many us know where to look. If you don’t know the location, then go to www.okcountyrecords.com and hunt there first. Most counties records are there (and others are available online if not.) If the wells are still in production, then the proper heirs can get put into pay status.
You can also search https://www.occeweb.com/moeasearch/ to see if any funds are held in escrow. I have never personally worked with these type of companies, but most take a huge cut of the funds when you could hire a landman for a fraction of the cost.
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