I have inherited mineral rights but don't know exactly what we've got. I get lease offers in areas I didn't know we had minerals in. I'm thinking about going to Chickasha to research this and figure out what we've got. Has anyone else done this? Are there any secrets or tricks to getting this information?
Hi Charlie:
To search the areas that you know about you need to be able to read deeds, probates, court orders and understand how the effect the title. In Grady County you probably would not get much help from the clerks.
You find the section township and range books ( I think they have six of them with varying date ranges).
Find the deed to your family confirm the legal description and then go to the very first book and run the title until it get's to your family to determine if the title is clear and that the person deeding to your family did own what they sold to your family. Then run the title from there to now to make sure no one sold any pieces of it.
To search to see if there is any additional acreage you do not know about there is a series of books called the Grantor/Grantee books where you can look for your family members name. They are huge and run by date. If you find your family members name it will give you a book and page number of the document. You find the document and now have a legal description to research.
This is a little simplified, but it will give you some idea of what you would be looking at.
If you are experienced it can take a half day to a day to run each legal description. It all depends on how many legal documents you have to read.
Thank you very much for the info, it helps a bunch.
Spend the money to have a professional landman, abstract company or attorney to do this title work and save you the work, frustration and possible erroneous results.