How do you find a reputable Landman in Louisianna and is this the best way to find out the value of land that was inherited. Brand new to this but I do know there was a lease singed in 2010 which is no longer in effect.
Hello and welcome. It depends on what you need the valuation for. If it is for tax purposes, you might need a proper report from a reservoir engineer. If it is to prepare to get ready to sell, that would be a landman. Either way, they do not need to be in Louisiana, just familiar with working that territory. There is a directory that you can access from the top banner in the forum. Good luck and feel free to ask questions from this great community.
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When did you inherit? Are you talking about surface land or mineral rights? If mineral rights, the timing is important with respect to the old lease that was not drilled. If not drilled within 10 years, the mineral rights revert back to the landowner.
Louisiana has a prescription act. Louisiana Mineral Servitudes — Tulane Law Review
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Thank you, we figure we need to get the value of the property before we look into selling it.
Do you have a location? Parish and section, township and range, I can check a subscription to look for activity. Sonetimes buyers make offers when there is about to be a drilling program and you need to be aware of that.
Section 13, Township 16 North, Range 10 West Bienville Parish, LA
The Lease was signed in 2009 so yes, it’s been more then 10 years, and it seems as though it was never drilled since the company has no record of royalties ever paid. The property was inherited in 2022. We are looking to sell the property and trying to learn what to do. A company reached out to us about buying the land and neither me nor my wife have any experience in this. Thank you for your response.
Comstock Resources drilled the HA RA SUNN:WEYRHSR 13-16-10H 001 in 2012. Completed in 2013. Well has been on production ever since. Looks like the surface location was just over the border in section 24. They drilled one well north and one well south. (HA RA SUNN:WEYRHSR 24-16-10H 001)
If it were me, I would contact Comstock asap and find out why you are not getting paid royalties. And I would put the brakes on any sale because there are a bunch of Comstock infill permits filed just next door to you in Township 16N-9W. Buyers want to swoop in and buy acreage right before drilling.
Thoughts to consider…Did you check unclaimed funds in the state of Louisiana or wherever your ancestor lived?
Double check your description. I looked up the one you gave.
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No, we don’t know anything about what we’re doing. We contacted comstock and they said they have no records of a well, which it sounds they didn’t have a well on our property. Should we seek legal advice since we have no clue about any of this?
Yes you should get a landman in Shreveport, that can help you figure out what you need, they are expensive around 500 a day plus expenses! If you get one they should be able to help you clear up your answer, I know that there is a few in that area because that were I lived most my life , that would be what I did if you can’t make it to the court house yourself, there’s a lot of good people in the county clerk office that can help you with everything! Good luck
It’s probable that you do not own the minerals since Weyerhauser owns most of the section. If your tract is in the the N2 of N2; E2 of E2; SW of NE; SW of SE and you are an heir to Lena Jean, Richard Baker, Archie Collins, Jr. or DSK, LTd., then you need someone to look at this further for you.
If you are in any other part of the section then you it might be worth it to have someone look, depending on how long you’ve owned the property and how large it is.
Comstock defnitely has a well, they probably aren’t talking to you seriously because you aren’t on their royalty deck and so they do not think you own any minerals.
However, because the title chains for Weyerhauser are so complicated, and they claim minerals under everything they own, whether they actually own the minerals or not, it is possible that there has been a mistake. Weyerhauser, and all the timber companies, are very sophisticaed when it comes to preserving their mineral servitudes and a couple of decades ago they created large servitudes by spinning out their minerals into a separate company and then leasing themselves through another company and then they sublease to the operators when they come knocking, which allows them to craft a lease that will help them preserve their servitudes.
Saying that after 10 years the minerals revert to the surface owner is a gross oversimpification to the Louisiana Mineral Servitudes and how they work. It makes it sound like once you’ve owned a tract for 10 years then you most likely own the minerals, and that is just not the case.
There are multiple ways to create and hold servitudes and it gets very complicated very quick. The first well drilled in this section was in 1918 and there have been many others drilled, although they are all lease based wells and not units.
Weyerhauser owns contigious property in all the sections surrounding this section, so you have to check all of those sections and as far as you can walk across the servitude (no corner corners) to see if the servitude is being held. If not, then you have to go look at the leases, without a unit clause a lease with more than one section, can hold a mineral servitude, without the lands being contigious, depending on if it is a unit or a lease based well, if the well is on the servitude, or not. As I said, it gets very complicated, very quick.
On top of that, there are a lot of pre-1977 wells, and to find out how long anything produced prior to 1977 is a very tedious process and for a 1918 well you would need to request Baton Rouge do a search as well as a search at the local DNR office and the records available online.
I’m happy to answer any other questions you might have about this-if you give me the property description, I can tell you more.
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You might first try to check the value with the Parish App. District. From your post there is not a producing oil or gas well on the property. You also might check with several real estate brokers in the Parish it is located in, they might can give you a 'ball park" estimate, it’s a start that should not cost you any money.
section 13, 16 N 10W 40 Acres