inherited gas rights transfer

My husband's mother died in 2012 and as executor and sole beneficiary of her estate, he sold her house in Bradford County, but retained the gas rights and lease. The lease is owned by four different energy companies. We have transferred the rights with Chesapeake and Matsui. ANADARKO is balking and saying that until the ENTIRE estate is settled, they cannot transfer their portion of the lease. There is an outstanding h lawsuit against against a pharmaceutical company that could still take a year or more to settle. Anadarko owes us over a year's worth of royalties as they began pumping gas from our well last August. 

My question if anyone here knows is: Is this legal or will we have to retain an attorney? It's ludicrous in my opinion. We are thinking that perhaps the contact person at the company misunderstood and thought that the estate is BEING sued. Has anyone heard of or had a similar experience? I figured we would have the biggest problems with Chesapeake as I have heard nightmare stories. They indeed dragged their heels and kept giving us more and more hoops to jump through, but we have been finally receiving regular checks.

Thanks in advance for any replies.

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Permalink Reply by JK on November 6, 2013 at 5:55am

The royalties should be being sent to the estate c/o the executor.

Then the exec can distribute to the heirs who will receive a 1099 for the year.

Until the estate is completely settled there can be no seperation of ownership.

We went through this and it takes a while.

You always need an attorney to keep it straight and correct.

Money well spent.

Permalink Reply by Mari-Anne Mahlau on November 6, 2013 at 6:01am

I am sorry. I neglected to include that the lease has been transferred into my husband's name which is why the checks and money from the other two companies are being sent directly to him.

Permalink Reply by Mari-Anne Mahlau on November 6, 2013 at 8:46am

But the lease is in my husband's name now.

Permalink Reply by Nancy Mosley on November 6, 2013 at 2:03pm

In our experience settling our mother's estate (oil and gas rights in WV, she lived out of state), all but maybe 2 companies were able to start sending the royalty checks to her heirs just with a copy of the will filed in the county where the oil and gas were. The other two needed the paperwork that the estate had been administered in WV. Only Chesapeake, for rights in a different state, asked for final papers on the estate being closed which took a couple of years due to a debt owed to the estate. So, it depends.

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