Hello All,
My uncle recently passed away leaving mineral rights. We need to state a value for those minerals to complete probate. No drilling has yet occurred on the property. Does anyone have any ideas on what we need to do.
Thanks
Jill
Jill, do you have any of the lowball unsolicited offers from companies that buy minerals laying around? The value of anything can be determined by a willing seller and a willing buyer. To hire someone to appraise your mineral acres might cost more than they are worth. If you have one of those lowball offers around I would just pay the taxes on the few hundred dollars per acre they offered rather than hire an appraiser.
In my personal case, when my father passed in 1998 our probate attorney said it might be a good idea to have the mineral acres appraised. I informed him that there had been no leases or production for over 20 years and that I wasn't worried about it. We did not have the acres appraised. I think probate attorneys are "borrowing" trouble recommending you have non-producing acres appraised because nobody can truly say how much they are actually worth.
I think value is a slippery subject. The oil underground may be worth millions of dollars but a lessee can gain title to it for $50 an acre, so what is the true value? I set the value of my non-producing minerals at $0 because I didn't even have offers to buy, lease or anything. Possibly all of you could do a cross conveyance between yourselves for $10, cash in hand, the recipt of which is acknowledged and the value is now $10.
Like I said, if you have a lowball buy offer or lease offer and you must give a value, I would use it. I am not an attorney. I think it highly likely that YOUR attorney mentioned having the acres appraised but he didn't tell you how to do it because he doesn't know. If he did know and he told you, you wouldn't be here. I wish you good luck.
Jill,
You could always use the "fair market value" from the county assessor appearing on your property tax statement.
Rick