obtaining the minerals under your property

I own property in wv and own the majority of the minerals. There is a small section that we do not own the minerals. Has anyone had any success in obtaining those minerals. I don't think there is a dormant act in wv but I may be wrong. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Mosley on August 15, 2014 at 9:59pm
Do you know who owns the rest of the minerals on the property? I think you are right about no dormant mineral law in WV. The counties tax mineral interests. If taxes are levied and not paid, the county sheriff can give sufficient notice then put the minerals up for sale.
Permalink Reply by Tony Yurina on August 15, 2014 at 10:26pm

A Quiet title action is one option.

Permalink Reply by jason irvine on August 16, 2014 at 9:29am
Tony. Please explain. What's is that. Nancy we do not know who owns It. The property has been in the family for 3o years. Something needs to be done that allows the surface owner to obtain the minerals. With all the changes going on I suspect it is a old law that is in place. It wouldn't be right if they went up for auction and I the surface owner didn't know about it
Permalink Reply by Nancy Mosley on August 16, 2014 at 11:11am

Jason, I forgot what county your minerals are in, and if you live in that county. I can tell you how to go about how to find the owner before the minerals were severed on that part, and go forward to current owners. I am not a lawyer but my sister is, and told me the steps, and I have done it for our interests in Ritchie county. Let me know if I can help. I also have a subscription to a database of tax and property ownership information for the whole state of WV. Sometimes a property gets left off the tax rolls due to various reasons but ownership is still in the owner it should have been in, or his heirs. Once discovered, it gets put on the rolls.

It is a whole different thing about how to obtain the minerals.

I have seen oil and gas companies put advertisements in the local paper trying to find "lost" heirs so they can drill. The ads run for a few weeks. After that I'm not sure what happens but I think the royalties for the "lost" heirs gets put in an escrow account.

I have heard of Quiet Title but can't remember how that works. Tony, I'd be curious about it.

Permalink Reply by craig on August 16, 2014 at 12:06pm

Quit Claim is what you want to google as it relates to minerals. I'm not a lawyer but here is my understanding.....

Essentially the current owner of the real property ( minerals in your case ) can file a Quit Claim deed which essentially means they have released any claim against the mentioned real property. The property goes back to the previous and/or mentioned party. 

My understanding only.

Permalink Reply by jason irvine on August 17, 2014 at 12:54am
Thanks you both and I will be taking you up on that Nancy. My email is irvineadj2@AOL.com. from there we can leave more personal info. I would be in your debt for some assistance. It is enough land to invest my effort.
Permalink Reply by Nancy Mosley on August 17, 2014 at 1:43pm
Will do this evening Jason. I am not at computer now but will also put a description of how I have done title tracing. Somewhat complicated maybe and if I needed a certified title I would need an attorney to verify my work but it gets me the info I need for my purposes.
Permalink Reply by Nancy Mosley on August 17, 2014 at 10:19pm

How I would start trying to figure out a situation like Jason's where you have some interest in the land and want to find out who else owns interests.

If you have a deed (you bought the property, your father bought property and left it to you with the deed, etc), look at the deed and see if it says something about where the person deeding it to you (your ancestor) obtained it. The Grantor is the one selling, the Grantee is the one buying. If it is the same acreage (for example 100 acres) then the deed might say something like "same tract conveyed to grantor by deed dated (some date) and recorded in the records of (county name) County in Deed Book No. (the number) at page (the page number). Then you go look for that deed.

If the original tract was larger, maybe 150 acres, it might say "part of same tract ...etc".

If you don't have the deed (often the deed gets lost, and remember in the "olden days" before any kind of photocopying, maybe someone had to type a copy or handwrite a copy. Maybe this didn't get done, or something.

Anyway if you don't have a deed, go to the courthouse and look in the grantor-grantee index under the name of yourself (if you bought the property and can't find the deed) or your ancestor. Find the name, see if the property is what you have, and look for the deed book and page number. Get the deed, and look for any reference to an earlier deed (see above).

If you don't know how you inherited it, you need to do some kind of genealogy research, then look for that name.

That is how to get started. I have read that it is best to trace your title back to the land grant (from the Commonwealth of Virginia, since WV was part of Va). That can get complicated. I have done it sometimes but it takes some digging and some luck. The Virginia State Library has a database of Land Grants with an index, and you can download the microfilm copy of the handwritten Land Grant.

In  cases like Jason's, where there is some of the property where the surface owner  doesn't own all the minerals, you need to get back to where the grantor conveyed what you own, and look in the grantor index to see where he granted some minerals (with the same description as the surface you have interest in) to somebody (the grantee) and then look under that name and see if he (she) conveyed it to anybody. If you don't find any more conveyance, check with the assessor's office under that name. Maybe that is the current owner, or his heirs. In the county I am familiar with, the Assessor's office has the Land Books, by District, going back almost to 1900. You can look (by district) under a name, and see what property he is taxed on in that district. When a transfer is made (by deed, will, or other inheritance) it should be recorded in the land books. You can go forward or back in the land books and find out a lot.

Permalink Reply by Jack Young on August 16, 2014 at 12:47pm
You can't take someone else's oil and gas rights via either a quit claim deed from yourself or a quiet title action - you need to track the owners down and buy their interests if they're willing to sell. Quiet title actions are for use in cases where there's a genuine dispute over the ownership, not where one party just wants what the other has. Imagine if they could claim your land the same way!
Permalink Reply by Tony Yurina on August 16, 2014 at 8:49pm

If the minerals in question are lost through transfer or heirs that cannot be tracked down or a defunct company or a perhaps an organization that has poor records and does not know they hold title to minerals, then you can bring a quiet title suit to the common pleas court in an attempt to regain the ownership of those minerals. It can be a legal gamble, but it is one option for the right circumstances and fact pattern.   I know, I have done it. It is expensive.  I was successful.

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