Anybody have time to answer some questions about rural acreage?

[Snattlerake]

I am a landman. The suggestion of going to the County Clerk's office is a good one. That's where the all official records are held. You can build your own abstract there if you want to and know how. The deputy clerks will point you to the books but you'll have to do the work. Copies generally run $1.00 a page. You can photo all of it but the index, they frown real hard on that, but the records themselves are fair game.

Undivided ownership is what a lot of people don't understand. If you buy a fraction (any fraction) you don't have any more (or less) rights to build or improve the land than the other owner(s) do. If you bought an undivided 1/2 and the parcel is 200 acres you would own 100 net acres. But....In reality you own 1/2 of every one of those 200 acres. You won't get financing to build period...Full stop. If you were to build something, plant something, etc. you are building/planting/etc. on the other owner(s) property. That's why that's a really good way to get yourself dragged into court. You need to be very good company to the other owners and they to you if you get what I mean.

If the minerals are severed you won't have a drilling rig setting up on your driveway or back patio. You have some say and will be paid for surface "damages". That's code speak for the surface used in the oil and gas operations, including lease roads, well pad, tanks, etc.

Forcing the other owners to sell is called partitioning and yes, you have to go to court and there are no guarantees that you will prevail but you might. It'll depend on the situation. I don't see it much anymore, but I don't deal with surface much either...

We had one well on our property in the 70's. It came in as a free flow well and petered out within the year. They had wells on all the land around our home place but none on ours. Dad always said they were offset drilling into us but couldn't prove it.

 

[HFS]

We had one well on our property in the 70's. It came in as a free flow well and petered out within the year. They had wells on all the land around our home place but none on ours. Dad always said they were offset drilling into us but couldn't prove it.

On 'The Simpsons' TV show, oil was discovered on school property and everybody had an idea how to waste/improve the children's education with the money.
Next door to the school, a sign goes up "Burns Slant Drilling Company" owned by the town millionaire and the oil underneath the school is suddenly gone.

 

[NationalMatch]

On 'The Simpsons' TV show, oil was discovered on school property and everybody had an idea how to waste/improve the children's education with the money.
Next door to the school, a sign goes up "Burns Slant Drilling Company" owned by the town millionaire and the oil underneath the school is suddenly gone.

Reminds me of the movie, "There Will Be Blood" with Daniel Day-Lewis. And "The Drowning Pool" with Paul Newman.

 

[CC379]

We had one well on our property in the 70's. It came in as a free flow well and petered out within the year. They had wells on all the land around our home place but none on ours. Dad always said they were offset drilling into us but couldn't prove it.

most everyone suspects a lot of fishy deals going on with oil production, but it is hard to prove, it could be that your property was a high spot in the formation. who really knows how many miles oil actually flows down there?


unrelated
back in the 70's our neighbor was working 4 jobs and still going broke, they drilled a well on his place he started making over $1,000 per day he started blowing money like a leaf blower, about 4 years later the well started slowing production, the pumper told him they had to keep production down to keep the flow coming in, the neighbor started going to the well and cranking it wide open again, the structure below finally collapsed and cut off flow, the neighbor soon ended up in bankruptcy

 

[Shadowrider]

We had one well on our property in the 70's. It came in as a free flow well and petered out within the year. They had wells on all the land around our home place but none on ours. Dad always said they were offset drilling into us but couldn't prove it.

I don't think anyone has slant drilled into another parcel to steal O&G in probably over 100 years or so. Down hole survey has been pretty good for a long time now. The Corporation Commission rides herd on all of that and they don't mess around with it. When you go before the commission you have to have your ducks in a row. They even have their own judges! I'd go do something else before I did that and those landmen that do it for a living have my condolences. lol

What likely happened is the wells around you probably drained the pool of which you were just over a part of. Like draining a swimming pool, if you own one end and the drain is in the other end and that owner pulls the plug, your water is gone too. They have rules for spacing, well density and production allowables and they are supposed to help mineral owners like you guys, but you can't legislate or regulate physics. It still happens.

 

[Raido Free America]

It's a 200 acre parcel in rural Oklahoma. The owner doesn't have the answers about questions of mineral rights. There are no pumps on the property at the present, but how does one go about finding out who owns the mineral rights? Is that a big deal? (Seminole County) I'd hate to build on the property and Deathwish Oil exercises mineral rights where the kid's playground would go.

Also, there are 40 acres undivided. The owner of the above mentioned parcel owns 20; another person owns 20. The other person refuses to sell, but has bequeathed the land to her children. Dunno if they'd sell. I'd hate to build on the 200 and her heirs put in a pot farm. Or mobile home. Or both.

Concerning undivided land, I had read that the issue can be forced by one, or the other, parties. One retains an attorney, there's an appearance before a judge, the judge orders the land divided, etc.

Anyone here familiar with the above issues? How many ways could the whole thing go south?

There are many traps in this, for example forced clean up of old oil well sites! I unbnderstand if the company that made the mess can't be found, I have heard the land owner can be forced to pay for this? A good lawyer if one can be found, would be a good investment?

 

[jollyrancher]

Here's my 2 cents. If the 40 acres of split ownership is a separate tract according to the legals and it just butts up to the quarter on one side, buy just the quarter if you're getting a good price for land in that area. Try to also obtain the minerals if you can, but that's not a deal breaker. Land is a limited commodity; they're not making more. If you're dead set on owning ground, this will probably be your best opportunity as far as bang for your buck. All of the good deals in my area as far back as I can remember have been private sale. You do not want to try to buy land at auction. Yeah, somebody on here will probably say "Well I got such and such acres for a steal at auction". And it's probably the only ground they've ever bought. And no. I don't own any ground. Why would I? My granddad has put together a sizable chunk over his years as a farmer (20 quarters from Ames through Drummond and Lahoma up to Carrier), and I'm the only heir that farms. Well, I was able to get into farming because of him. He's my landlord. So basically what I'm trying to say is I'm pretty tied into the land purchases in my area. Auctions are high. People get into bidding wars to see who has the biggest d@#*. Granddad is still buying and just picked up 240 acres this past fall at auction. A few of his purchases were private sale and they were all hands down cheaper than auction purchases in that time frame. Back to the 40 of split ownership. You're stewing it too much. You have other neighbors. It's just a quarter. People border you. You ought to see what most of my neighbors pulled recently. I have the only home on 480 acres that will be mine once Grandpa passes. Wind people came this past summer and stood wind generators up. We wouldn't sell out. Grandpa and a good family friend (he wouldn't lease to them either) own most of the land for 3 miles to the east of me. So the gennys were kept to just the west side of me. It still sucks. They stood a bunch of them up and they get to within about a mile from me. My beautiful view off my back porch over the native grass pasture and my Hereford cows is shot to crap. Nothing you can do. Not my ground. That's the beauty of land owner rights. But it still is hands down better than living in some neighborhood with a truckload of neighbors.

 

[Snattlerake]

I don't think anyone has slant drilled into another parcel to steal O&G in probably over 100 years or so. Down hole survey has been pretty good for a long time now. The Corporation Commission rides herd on all of that and they don't mess around with it. When you go before the commission you have to have your ducks in a row. They even have their own judges! I'd go do something else before I did that and those landmen that do it for a living have my condolences. lol

What likely happened is the wells around you probably drained the pool of which you were just over a part of. Like draining a swimming pool, if you own one end and the drain is in the other end and that owner pulls the plug, your water is gone too. They have rules for spacing, well density and production allowables and they are supposed to help mineral owners like you guys, but you can't legislate or regulate physics. It still happens.

I never did. Like you said those wells are so regulated these days. He just was gritching because he liked to gritch.