My brother and I would like to sell mineral rights in Loving County Texas that our mother, who passed away recently, owned. How does one go about understanding their value? Where or how would we sell these assets?
They are fractional shares (1/32) of 26 mineral rights (only minerals, no surface rights), in block C24 sec 20,21,22, block C25 sec 3,11,12,13,14,24,25,26, and block C26 sec 3,4,5. I’m getting this info from the Loving County Appraisal District’s website. The rights are all listed there as 0 acres. Lease names and lease numbers are listed for each asset.
We looked into selling these a few years ago, in response to some unsolicited offers that were mailed to our mom. When contacted, the potential buyers asked about the royalty amounts for these properties. We know our mother used to receive some royalties, but that was 20 years ago and we have not seen any incoming royalty payments in the past 10 years. We are trying to determine of these properties are generating any royalties (which are not being sent to us and are maybe accruing somewhere else), or if these are non-royalty producing properties. How would I find that out?
I am a complete beginner at understanding mineral rights, so please bear with me.
Thank you in advance for any help you can offer us!
It is hard to value non-producing minerals. Pecan Tree can help you get a rough estimate.
To look for funds that might have been escheated to the state, go to https://www.claimittexas.gov/ and search your mom’s name. If you know the operators that used to pay her, you can contact them and ask about the interest.
If you can find the township, you can find the sections on the TXRRC GIS and click on the wells in that section and contact those operators in hopes of finding interests in suspense with them. The map is here: https://gis.rrc.texas.gov/gisviewer/
Pretty sure all of that is producing. Operated by ConocoPhillips. I don’t know, I’d call COP owner relations and see if they show your mother as an owner in any of their decks.
There are dozens of producing wells on these lands. You will likely need to get the operator to get you in pay status before getting top-of-market offers.
Mineral rights have been so good to be. It’s so fun to start getting checks “Out of the Blue” I don’t think I’ve ever seen an offer that wouldn’t have cost me serious money in the long run. I just got a bonus check from a pooling order on a property that hadn’t paid me since the late 90’s.
If you have every tried to buy mineral rights you would understand how lucky you are to own some. It doesn’t matter if they have NEVER been leased. Why would you want to sell something that is almost impossible in some places to buy? Most everyone needs or wants money, 99.99 % of us. But I just won’t get that broke to sell any.
We’ve signed up at Texas file to look for documents, but have only been able to find one conveyance for property sold in 2010. There’s more work to do in here, but need to understand how to find what we are looking for.
https://www.texasfile.com/#
We’ve contacted Conoco Phillips. (The operator appears to be COG who apparently is under Conoco Phillips.) The wait time for a response is VERY long, over a month. Just a few days ago I finally received an email that they are looking at our case and will get back to us after some research.
https://www.conocophillips.com/us-interest-owners/contact-us/
We’ve checked for unclaimed funds under my mother’s name in all states in which she has resided, and in Texas. Nothing was found.
https://unclaimed.org/search/
We have an estimated value for the mineral rights from the Probate attorney handling my mother’s estate (but not from someone who specializes in mineral rights.)
While I appreciate your opinion, everyone’s experience is different. In our case, we are paying taxes on this property and not seeing any income at all. I has been that way for years. Even when we were getting payments (15 years ago?), they were small. While I think that the mineral rights likely greatly benefited my granduncle, it has now been divided among his heirs and passed down and is 1/32nd the original size, to be divided yet again. Of course we may change our opinion if we discover that there are funds collecting somewhere that due to us, but as of now they are an expense, not income. I’m glad that your experience is different.
If you are paying taxes on your mineral interest in Texas that means they are producing oil or gas. You don’t pay property taxes on non producing mineral rights in Texas.
Thanks for your desire to help, but due to the proliferation of scam and fraud these days, we don’t feel comfortable giving out her name publicly. It’s our family policy.
More beneficial to all who read the forum would be to describe the process that you would use if you had her name, so that we can look up the information ourselves, as well as empower future forum users to be able to access information. And a detailed list of what information we are seeking would help as well, as I said we are totally new in this endeavor.
I would check the unclaimed property website. At least once a month someone the Union post office workers place the wrong mail in my P O box. Every once in a while those funds end up on the unclaimed website.
Here’s an update for anyone interested: