Legal Question Regarding an Estate Asset

[Deleted]

Here's one that stumped me today. Distant relatives of DH's own a really small % of some mineral rights (MOGs) we own. Their grandfather had a 3% interest in DH's grandmother's mineral rights. Now we are 3 generations down and we've been contacted by an oil company to enter into a lease. I don't think the "cousins" have clear title but I don't know how one perfects title in their case.

Grandfather died intestate and their father sued his sister over his inheritance including the MOGs and there's a court order giving the two siblings 50% interest.

Father dies intestate. Then mother dies intestate. Cousin reports that mother's only asset was a bank account of about $3,500, so no probate.

So with no executor or Trustee who would quitclaim father's MOG interest to the children?

[Deleted]

They have to go back to probate to get the legal document to transfer the rights. Just stupid that they forgot to include it if they knew about it. It will cost them $s and time to do it. I hope it does not interfere with your lease.

[Deleted]

Rockit,

It's a strange situation. It sounds like mom had nothing but the bank account when she died and the kids didn't know about that until a couple of years later.

Doubly strange since Dad was a lawyer and had been a Federal Judge in one of the U.S. territories. But if they didn't have any money and lived in a community property state (WA) I can understand why they didn't spend the money to prepare estate documents. The MOGs have never generated any money and the value would be negligible.

ETA: Fortunately we don't "need" their interest to enter into a lease. But for their own sake (and their children's) they should clean up their title.

[tskeeter]

One of the possible ways to address this type of situation is to have the kids quit claim their interest in the mineral rights to another family member. As I understand a quit claim, it basically says "I don't know if I have any rights to this property, but if I do, I transfer those rights to ....". Might be easier, faster, and cheaper than opening up probate so the mineral rights can be transferred to the kids. And reduce the number of people who are involved in transactions related to the mineral rights.

Since you are the largest interest holder, you might want to explore this option with a real estate attorney and, if this option is viable, invest some money in compensating the kids for transferring their interest in the mineral rights to you (you have to exchange something of value in order for a contract to be binding, such as money for mineral rights).

[Deleted]

TSkeeter,

Yeah, I thought about "the heirs of x" quitclaiming their group interest to each of themselves individually. Not sure if that's really legally binding.

I actually don't need to get involved. Their group interest in the mineral rights is only 1.5%. Individual rights are .375%. It looks like we can enter into a MOG lease with only a 75% majority. It makes far more sense for us to buy out DH's uncle's heirs shares. That's 48.5% interest which just split in 6 shares with the 6th share now split in 2. We've made an offer to buy them out. We'll see who bites. We don't think we'll be making much money on this deal but it's so much easier to just deal with one or two parties.