What you own, what it's worth, whether to keep it, and how to clean up the paperwork. In plain English.
Most of the mineral owners we talk to did not buy their minerals. They inherited them, often as a fraction of a fraction, in a county they have never visited, with paperwork that stopped making sense two generations ago. If that is you, here is the honest lay of the land.
Start with whatever exists: royalty check stubs, division orders, old deeds, probate documents, or letters from operators. Any one of these is enough for a competent landman to reconstruct the rest from county records. If you have nothing but "grandma had minerals in Dewey County," that is workable too; it just takes more digging.
This is research we do free for anyone who asks, because we cannot value what has not been identified. You will get a plain statement of what you own whether or not you ever sell it.
Inherited minerals generally receive a stepped-up basis: for tax purposes, your cost is reset to the value at the previous owner's death. If you sell reasonably soon after inheriting, the taxable capital gain can be small or nearly zero. This is one of the few genuine tax breaks in the mineral world, it is why "sell soon after inheriting" is sometimes rational even for people inclined to hold, and it is worth a conversation with your CPA before you decide anything.
Minerals passed down informally, through wills never probated in the minerals' state, or through several generations of splits, often need curative work before anyone can pay you properly: probates, heirship affidavits, corrective deeds. Operators may be holding your royalties in suspense right now for exactly this reason.
Two things to know. First, suspended money does not disappear; it can usually be recovered once title is fixed. Second, when Berlin buys an interest with title problems, we do the curative work ourselves, at our cost. A tangled title is not a reason to accept a discount from a buyer who claims it is worthless.
There is no universal answer, and anyone who says otherwise is selling something. Keeping can make sense when wells are young, activity is building, or the checks meaningfully matter. Selling can make sense when the interest is a small administrative burden, when the stepped-up basis makes the sale nearly tax-free, when heirs want a clean split of value, or when concentrated cash serves your family better than a scattered trickle. We wrote about when not to sell because we mean it: some of the best outcomes we have delivered were telling a family to keep what they had.
Identify the interest from whatever fragments exist. Value it with the work shown. Cure the title at our cost. Buy from one heir or coordinate the whole family in a single closing, including across state lines. And answer the questions honestly along the way, including the ones that end with you keeping your minerals.
Start with the free valuation form or call or text 918-984-1645. A county name is enough.
Free, no obligation, and no pressure. Send whatever you have, even just the county name, and we reply within one business day.
Get a Free Valuation or call or text 918-984-1645