I am told that I own gas & oil mineral rights to several acres of property left by my grandfather in Tyler County, WV. I am also told that “STO” currently has a well on one of these property and their less was just renewed. I have not heard anything from them. Do they owe me any royalty? Should I notify them that I own a portion of the mineral rights?
Steve,
If you know the Tax ID Number for the parcel, I would suggest you contact the Tyler County Assessor's Office and they will be able to inform you of the well API number and who the producer is, on any parcel. I would then notify the production company of your ownership. It sounds as if you will need to research the title to verify your ownership and the chain of ownership. Any royalties that go unpaid, are required to be placed into an escrow account by the production company.
Feel free to contact me directly if you have any specific questions that I can assist with.
Cheers,
WJ
Here is a link to the Tyler County Online system
You can use the Tax site to research tax records. The Document Inquiry site gives you access to the recent documents (deeds, leases, etc) and a way to download the software to view the old records. They say this works best with Internet Explorer as a browser. You need Silverlight software. If you have all that, when you open the Document Inquiry after a second or so you will see a button at the top right side saying Right Click. You right click that and can download the software. It is not completely intuitive how to use the old records, so if you have questions please ask.
Wilson has good advice about checking into royalty questions. The company reports royalty payments to the state tax dept who reports to the county assessor so the assessor in Tyler should have the info. If not, there may be steps you need to take to get your grandfather's interests in order with Tyler County.
I have an issue as well. Jay Bee contacted me about a parcel and then re-contacted me telling me there was an active well on the property ( that they could not negotiate with e because another company owned and had the active oil well) . Upon contacting the company they offered me a little less than $100.00 dollars for the active well parcels gas and oil lease payment and then stated they sold the property to anther company. I did not cash the check and feel something is not quite right. I have tried to contact THE OTHER COMPANY, with NO response. The well has en active for year. Then the other company that sold the oil well leases stated the division was wrong and that it should e divided between 5 people when there were only 3 children not 5 and they are including the spouse of the children??? It is a mess. The other companies have paid $5500.00 or just signing the leases. Who is someone to contact that could evaluate this and le me know what to do? 334-717-9585
Yogie,
Do you know the district, map and parcel number?
WJ
Yes, they sent me leases to be signed for several different towns and companies were wanting lease signed. All have the information of the property and gas and oil leases One has the Nancy Allen FARM NAMED AS HAVUING OVER 5500 ARCS,
Yogie,
I tried to call the number you have listed, obviously to no avail. If you wish to contact me directly via email, I will try to assist in any fashion that I can.
WJ
I'm just posting a reply so I can follow this thread. Nancy and WV Mineral Owner have already provided excellent advice, as usual.