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Family member with power of attorney, secretive and the word gone are not a good combination. I would say to scan your letter and e-mail the sibling with the POA and everybody else. Ask them what they think. The only way to deal with secretive is to disseminate information widely. Good luck.
If you were contacted, then the landman thought that you had a mineral interest in the property. Does not have much of anything to do with back taxes, normally. In Texas (Gonzales) minerals are not taxed until they are in production. So there could likely be a severed mineral interest. All of this is speculation.
As to paperwork on the land, ask the landman to help you out and give you a copy of the instrument creating the mineral interest. They will do that.
Then be real careful about signing a lease and have a broad disclaimer of warranty -- don't just strike the warranty provision in the lease. That does no real good.
Bob Kennedy brought out some good points. The bottom line to your question is that if you have an unencumbered mineral interest, you are free to lease or not lease on whatever terms you deem best, regardless of what other family members may do. There is negotiating strength in numbers, however.
Best
This is probably not too uncommon an issue these days. As Buddy said find out the origin of your mineral interest from the Landman. The Landman may also want to contact your siblings as there may be no contact information for them. It sounds like you may own only an undivided mineral interest in the property and not the surface estate. This is speculation on my part. If so, then no taxes would apply here in that case. Once you know what your "net mineral acres" are then you will be able to negotiate the mineral lease. Assuming your siblings have an undivided interest in the mineral property it is better from a negotiating perspective to have all parties grouped together to get better leverage in negotiating royalty rate, bonus and primary term to drill. From my own personal experience if it were not for a landman's research on mineral property we did not know we owned since we did not own the surface estate, we would have lost an opportunity to lease our minerals. Good luck.
Do your homework.
Family is family and blood is blood.
However, money is money which can easily change everything.
Over and over we see one family member take all the revenue that should be shared by the rest of the family.
Robert P. Malone said:
Do your homework.
Family is family and blood is blood.
However, money is money which can easily change everything.
Over and over we see one family member take all the revenue that should be shared by the rest of the family.
If the property is in Texas, one place to start, at least online, would be with the online county records where the land is located.
Most Texas counties are online now and some (not all) have a filter by which not only surface owners can be searched but also mineral owners.
Property taxes owed will also be shown. At least they have been on the particular counties I've searched.
Start with the 'named' County Appraisal District then look for property owners and go from there. Google is your friend here. For example, search "Gonzales County Appraisal District", (or any county) and good luck with your situation.
You may be able to go in with more information than your greedy sibling.
If you provide us with the State, and legal description of the property, I will more than likely be able to shed some light on the situation.
Here is an article on Internet Resources that may have some of the resources you need. State and County would be helpful.
http://www.mineralrightsforum.com/profiles/blogs/internet-resources-for-mineral-owners
I CAN NOT HELP MUCH EXCEPT TO SAY THAT THERE ARE WELLS PERMITED WITHIN 2 MILES OF BYRD LOCKHART
A LOT DRILLING TO THE SOUTH AND EAST. EOG HAS A WELL THAT HAD 8,000 BOPD INTHE SOUTH EAST PART OF THE COUNTY. NOT CLOSE TO YOU BUT NOT THAT FAR AWAY. IF YOU HAVE MINERALS THERE AND MORE THAN JUST A SINGLE ACRE BEFORE YOU SIGH A LEASE HIRE A LAWYER TO GET THE LEASE RIGHT. ONE THAT KNOWS THE AREA.
Your father might have had an interest in your mother's mineral interest (1) if she left her Estate to him, (2) if she specifically left this mineral interest to him (a bequest) in a Will that was probated, OR (3) if she had no Will whatsoever or had a Will that was NOT probated he might have inherited part or all of her mineral interest through the laws of descent and distribution. Ask the landman to show you the "chain of title" for this mineral interest so that you can have a comfort level that you actually do have partial ownership in these minerals.
private said:
This came from my mothers side so would my father have an interest? (mom has passed long time ago).
Hmmm, from everything written here, especially when you say that your Father has an interest and that all the siblings are "separate holders," it SOUNDS like there is a life tenancy involved here, although there is no way for me to know for sure without reading all the relevant documents.
But you said Mother owned the minerals, from which I infer that they were her separate property and that she likely inherited the minerals from somebody else, then she herself died without a Will. So unless she conveyed some or all of the minerals to Father before she died, then Father must have acquired his interest from her through the "laws of descent and distribution." These are laws established in every state to determine exactly WHO inherits the Estate of a Person in the absence of a Probate case for that Estate.
I do not know where these minerals are located and what the "laws of descent and distribution" might be in that state, but just as an example, if this were in Texas, Father would have inherited from Mother a "LIFE ESTATE" in 1/3 of whatever minerals Mother owned at the time of her death, and all of Mother's children would have inherited from her the remaining 2/3 interest in "FEE SIMPLE." Then, whenever Father passed away, his 1/3 interest would AUTOMATICALLY go to all of Mother's children, in equal shares.
The "Life Estate" means that it would be IMPOSSIBLE for Father or anybody holding his Power of Attorney (POA) to sell that 1/3 interest to somebody else in "Fee Simple." The "Fee Simple" means that there is no restriction on sale, the person owning the "fee simple" interest can convey that interest to anybody else at any time. The whole purpose of the life tenancy was to give the surviving spouse a benefit in the separate property of the Decedent for the lifetime of the surviving spouse, but that eventually the children would own ALL of that separate property. If all this is true, then the sibling with the POA that you mentioned CANNOT "mesh" Father's interest with his or her interest, at least not in "fee simple." In other words, he cannot "grab" Father's interest for himself and his heirs for the rest of time. Hope all this information is of some use to you.
It can't hurt to keep an eye on what a family member is doing. Sometimes a lawyer makes a mistake in an action and then you would need a lawyer to undo what was done. Such cases are talked of here occasionally. Sometimes the interest is not large enough to make it worth the legal expense of undoing or people literally can't afford a couple thousand dollars for the lawyer to undo the action. If you catch something like that ahead of time, you will be ahead.
I was not trying to be cryptic. There are people who have posted here that they allowed one family member to be personal representative in a probate of an estate and found on completion of the probate that they were excluded. The thing you must understand is that the court does not care, the court does not investigate any assertions, if someone goes to court and makes an assertion unopposed, the court will likely grant whatever they want. If you wish to oppose such action at a later date, you need to hire a lawyer of your own to show the court what was done erroneously and ask the court to set aside what had gone before and order what you wish. The court does not care, does not investigate claims and assertions, so it's best to watch what is going on so you can object in a timely manner and save yourself thousands of dollars in legal fees. Sometimes I wonder if it were a mistake or whether it was planned strategy to gain all of the interest.
Sadly, many people can't trust their own family. I was personal representative of our fathers estate and my brother got drunk and accused me of stealing his birthright, although I had copied him every e-mail and every scrap of paper. I took the final order to him that said he received half of everything unambiguously. The original because my printer was dead. My brother said he wanted his lawyer to look it over but being drunk promptly lost the papers (since found). My brother gets his checks equal to mine and has since apologized. The thing is, someone else could have done what he accused me of because he read nothing I sent him and was totally complacent. I recommend you take an interest in anything having to do with your minerals and not just assume anything. Being able to fix something legally, is not the same as it never happened in the first place, believe me, I know from experience.