My grandmother left multiple leases to my mother years ago. Unfortunately my mother did not properly keep up with them. We found some unclaimed property for her from the State and contacted them. They sent us a letter stating that we needed to show proof of ownership for the property “Okfuskee County 8-10N-9E” – Any help on how I could go about proving her ownership to this? Also would the unclaimed property be for back royalty payments? We don’t know much about this at all so we are kind of learning as we go.
Going through similar issues with some unclaimed money in OK. And yes they are related to royalty payments held in suspense due to unclear title or ownership. At the least it probably will require an affidavit of ownership. You may find success with searching Okfuskee records for recorded deeds and leases which can make the case for succession of ownership. This is what land men do extremely well so might be worthwhile to enlist their help.
Carl Thank you so much for the information. She has multiple leases that we are trying to track down and this has become harder than I expected! I will attempt to do the search for the deed/lease myself, but will look into employing the help of a landman if I can’t locate it myself.
A good starting place is www.okcountyrecords.com. Not all of the OK counties are there, but most of them are. The digital records go back to the early 1990’s for most counties.
A slight correction on terminology. You are looking for “mineral rights”. The lease is an active contract to have the option to drill within a certain time. The minerals may or may not have a lease on them. The deed goes with the mineral rights.
M_Barnes- Thank you! I will check that website and thank you for the correction on the terminology. This is new to both of us and I wasn’t 100% sure what the difference was.
I have another question yall may be able to help me with. So I’ve been in contact with a couple oil and gas companies tracking some of these mineral rights back. So say for example I spoke with “Sheridian” and they said they found her account with them. Does that mean that there is lease on the property?
In that case, there would be a lease.
I had that in Texas found unclaimed property in my grandfathers name. I had to bring my deceased mothers birth and death certificate, my birth certificate. And give all my cousins birth dates and ssa’s. We each got a small share of what had been returned to Texas unclaimed property in the 90s. Then I had to fill out more paperwork about all the heirs (there are 11 of us) and show my grandfathers will and his 2nd wife’s will. He had 2 oil wells on his land and so far only one is working, The last few years I’ve received $2.68 each December. The way the wills were written is how the money is distributed. If your mother is the sole heir, then that should not be alit of forms. Have her call OK unclaimed property see who the royalty distributor is and call them for all future payments. Good luck
Thank you! Yes I contacted the company that is listed as the royalty distributor but they are claiming that it wasn’t them and some how the Ok treasurer must have messed up? Sounds kind of weird to me so at this point I’m not sure where to go since they are saying they never submitted any unclaimed property for her or have any record of her in their system.
With Oklahoma unclaimed property, if the amounts are less than $10,000 they will often accept an affidavit together with other proofs to release the funds. This, however, will not cause the royalty payor to distribute to the heirs and the process may need to be repeated.
In my inventory list of land I inherited in the description it says “Minerals Reserved” what does that mean? Thank you.
A landman in Texas contacted me wanting to buy mineral rights that are in my father and grandfather’s names. I didn’t even know these were in the family. How do I go about getting title in my name? There are no existing royalties that I know of.
That is more of a question for Richard Winblad. Ask the landman where he got your name. You may need to file a probate to get them into your name.
This depends upon the state where the minerals are located. In Oklahoma a probate if generally the accepted method.