Inherited Mineral Rights

Most of the interests we buy in this basin didn't start with the person selling them, they started with a grandparent or great-grandparent who held onto West Texas ground long before the current drilling boom.

Inheriting mineral rights usually comes with more questions than answers. You might get a check every month or every quarter and have no idea what well it's tied to, or you might get nothing at all and wonder if the interest is even still active. Either way, the first step is the same: figure out exactly what you own before deciding what to do with it.

We've walked plenty of heirs through this, and the good news is that Permian counties keep decent records once you know where to look, even for interests that have sat quiet for years. Some of the more interesting positions we've bought started as a single county's worth of ranch land mineral rights, split evenly among five children two generations ago, and by the time it reached the current heirs it had become a scattered handful of fractional interests across several different wells and operators.

Figuring out what you actually inherited

Start with the will or the probate order, which should describe the interest, though older documents sometimes just reference all mineral rights owned without listing specific tracts. If that's what you have, the county clerk's records in the relevant Permian county, cross-referenced against any division orders or check stubs that were being mailed to the deceased, will usually fill in the gaps.

If checks were coming in before your relative passed, contact the operator listed on the most recent statement and have the ownership transferred once probate closes. If nothing was being paid, that doesn't mean the interest is worthless, it may simply be sitting on non-producing acreage or land that hasn't been leased recently.

If your relative kept a file of old lease documents, division orders, or even handwritten notes about the property, hold onto everything, even paperwork that looks outdated. Old lease terms and legal descriptions are often exactly what's needed to confirm a chain of title that the county's own indexing might not make obvious at a glance.

Deciding whether to keep or sell

Some heirs want to hold onto family mineral rights for sentimental reasons, and that's a legitimate call to make, especially if the interest is modest and low-maintenance. Others are dealing with multiple siblings, out-of-state addresses, and a small check that's more paperwork than it's worth, and selling cleans that up in one transaction.

There's no universally right answer here. What we'd say is don't decide based on assumptions about value either way. A quiet-looking interest can still be worth a real conversation, and a check that looks decent right now might be further into its decline than it appears.

Multiple heirs, one interest

It's common for mineral rights to pass to several siblings or cousins jointly rather than to one person. If that's your situation, each heir typically has the right to sell their own undivided share independently, or the group can choose to sell together in a single transaction, which is usually simpler for everyone's paperwork.

If the family is split on what to do, that's fine too. We've closed plenty of deals where two siblings sold their shares and a third kept theirs, all off the same underlying interest, with no issue.