mineral rights Montague County

[javak]

They gave us a $21,000 signing bonus per acre here in Southlake , Tx . However , that was during the big boom three years ago . Last month their option expired without drilling or renewing the lease because of a combination of lower gas prices and anti- drilling protestors.

[jimboburnsy]

Originally Posted by RockyJoe817

I did a search on your question:

How do I find out if I have the mineral rights to my property?

Do I Own the Mineral Rights to My Property?


I was thinking if you have never sold or leased the mineral rights, then you are the owner of the property and any mineral rights. But to confirm you may want to contact the courthouse records office or Tax accessor office for that county
and hopefully they may be able to answer your question precisely or direct you to someone who can make that determination.


Montague county tax assessor:
Montague County - Tax Assessor-Collector

Well, if her mineral rights have been severed from the surface (which is probably the case if she wasn't aware that they were her property) and she has never received any royalties from sales of production from the property then I don't think the Montague Tax Assessor is going to have any record of her ownership. She would have to conduct a search of the Montague County Clerk's records in order to determine what, if any, mineral interest she owns. Going through the old deeds and finding the mineral reservations can be a difficult and time consuming process and a first-timer may find him/herself upside down and backwards with an incorrect interpretation of the records. There's no reason she can't do it herself and she could get lucky and find simple, cut & dried title that can be figured out with simple math, but the chances are pretty good that she'll need help.

[elenalb]

I live in CA, my brother in Magnolia TX. Apparently our grandfather's family has rights to a parcel in Montague County(Bell County School Land Survey). We have been contacted by a "broker" (I think) this guy is pressuring us to sign a lease on this land that we never even knew we had rights to, for 3 years at $10 per acre (approx. 80 acres).

I don't even know where to start researching whether or not this is a good deal or if we're being scammed.
Any ideas of where to start? For $800 it really isn't worth my time spending a lot on legal fees, etc.

Thanks for any feedback.

Helen Lee-Bryant
elenalb@sonic.net

[loves2read]

that is low for bonus money but it depends on what % of ownership interest you might have in the property minerals and you don't know what % of ownership you might have at this point

the tad.org site does give mineral owners for property I believe

look for the Montague county appraisal district web site and for that piece of property--
surely you have some sort of address for it
you can see if the website lists mineral owners

and you are right
for 800 or even 2K it isn't work spending on legal fees

[elenalb]

Thanks for replying to my inquiry. The "broker" says he has done extensive searches (including finding my father's probated will in NM from 2002). This is apparently my paternal grandfather's family's mineral rights. Never knew my paternal grandfather, he left my dad/grandmother right after WWII, when my dad was 24. Was always raised to think his side of the family were dirt poor. Apparently, his 2nd wife did not have his will probated when he died (whenever that was?). We already have small royalties coming from mineral rights in Montague County from my grandmother's grandparents that we share with 8 other second cousins, etc.

My main concern is that this guy wants to offer us $10 (not per acre as I originally posted) for the lease rights to tie up this property. Whether or not we have the rights (and I'm assuming we do, as he is very aggressively pursuing us) $10 for a 3 year lease is highway robbery. But I have no way to know what the going rate is for this type of lease. We got $2900 each last summer from a speculator on another piece of property in another county, so I know this has to be really low.

I'm grateful to my great-grandparents for their fore site in reserving these mineral rights for future generations. My son, niece and nephew will benefit from their "smarts". They may have been farmers, but they were savvy.

Thanks again for your responses on who we might talk to in the Montague TX area about mineral rights value. The County Recorder answered my husband's email last week. We can pay $15 to get the county records, so I may start there.

Blessings!

[loves2read]

The broker's offer is worth the paper it came on...
NEVER give up your mineral rights...if they are for any appreciable amount of land...I don't consider a subdivision lot worth arguing about...but even 10 acres in the right spot can be worth keeping...
Plus they don't cost you anything unless they make you money...
Don't lease...
I think what some people are doing is buying lease rights to bundle into financial investments to sell to people who have been bumfuzzled into thinking that will make more money for them than a CD...
not so...
someone in my neighborhood is apparently in that business--oil and gas royalty and lease investments...
he was a golf pro at one stage in his business life...if that tells you anything...
Royalties obviously bringing in money can be an investment but by the time they are bought and sold a couple of times, the return has been pretty watered down...

Good luck
IMO oil and gas rights will be worth more in 20 yrs than now unless someone learns how to make cheap hydrogen fuel cells...and land that hasn't been depleted by drilling may benefit from the world's insatiable desire for power...