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About a year ago now, I received an offer in the mail from a company to pay me a bonus of $500 for a four-year lease to the mineral rights to the 0.218 acres where I live. This was for rights to drill beneath it to extract natural gas. I trashed the letter and the the enclosed lease.
Later people began showing up at my front door with a lease and notary stamp in hand for me to sign a lease for four years for the right to drill under our "ranch" (that's what we call it because we are Texans) and receive a bonus of $500 plus, at some point after gas begins to be sold, some monthly royalty check. I kept telling these dudes and dudettes that I didn't need $500.
There is something called the Barnett Shale http://www.thebarnettshale.com/ and Fort Worth is seems (if what I am told is true) sits on some of the best part of this area from which to extract natural gas.
I live in what may be the largest National Historic Home District in the US and most of the lots are as small as ours, and most of the homes 80 or so years old. Just South of us is another district of bigger and pricier old homes occupied by people that probably have a higher average level of education than the average level in my district, also they have properties generally twice or more as big as our lot. A few holdouts from lease-signing in our district began to attend meetings the other district was holding to discuss the leases and what to do about them. They too had been offered the $500 lease-signing bonuses. That district got its shit together and negotiated a lease price of $15,000 per acre for the rights to natural gas. The stragler homeowners in my district, of which we were, got the company, XTO, to offer us the same terms they offered the other district.
So today wife and I went down to the Fort Worth Gas/XTO and leased our mineral rights for natural gas for the next four years (interestly, we, or likely wife after I die, can sell the property and retain the mineral rights until the world ends). The bonus for our "ranch" was 3272 bonars. We didn't need those bonars, but it seems that once a company gets 67% of the land in certain sections under contract, they can begin drilling for gas. Those owners who did not lease their mineral rights will have the gas extracted from within/beneath their properties and will eventually receive some sort of a royalty check but will apparently never receive a bonus.
So my question is what should we do with this small windfall?
Wife wants to cover up our fomica countertops and put in some play-like granite countertops which are cheaper than real granite. She already has gotten a quote for the job--2,300 bonars--and for which the company will let you pay 50% two weeks before installation, then 25% in a month and the same in another month by credit card no less. We got such a "good" price on the deal because I said, if we did it, I would detach and reattach the plumbing to the sink vs. paying their plumber to come from Dallas to do it.
Wife got onto this idea for play-like granite because two close friends back in Nashville had recently had their kitchens done with the stuff.
Whew! What do you tell your wife whom you love dearly? First, I told her I loved her, which I do every day, then I told her that big screen TV's, home theaters, granite tops, designer wear and accessories, diamonds are forever, swimming pools, big fast cars with navigation systems, McMansions, iPods, and video consoles and games are things that Americian marketing-genius, some would call it: genius, has convinced the average dumb American that he or she should have to achieve what is insinuated as "The American Dream."
I told her that with our present wealth we could afford anything we needed, because we had not bought everything that comes down the pike that the advertisers would lead Americans to believe that one must have if one is worth a hoot. Surely she cannot tell her buddies that she has play-like granite countertops on which she can set hot things right off the stove without even stopping to worry about doing such. I told her we already have a lot of little doies on which to set hot things as we have always done. I think in a day or two she'll start speaking to me again.
When someone offers you 500 bonars for the the mineral rights to your land, my advice is don't take it. Unfortunately most of the people on my street about whom I know anything certainly could have used 3K--whether they would have used it wisely or not is another issue, but they all would have benefitted from not jumping on the 500 bonar bonus--which from what I know, all but three of the the 22 home on my street's block jumped on.
I told wife also that I think in two years granite counter tops will be cheaper and if I am wrong about that, then okay, the houses that have them now will be cheaper.
Later people began showing up at my front door with a lease and notary stamp in hand for me to sign a lease for four years for the right to drill under our "ranch" (that's what we call it because we are Texans) and receive a bonus of $500 plus, at some point after gas begins to be sold, some monthly royalty check. I kept telling these dudes and dudettes that I didn't need $500.
There is something called the Barnett Shale http://www.thebarnettshale.com/ and Fort Worth is seems (if what I am told is true) sits on some of the best part of this area from which to extract natural gas.
I live in what may be the largest National Historic Home District in the US and most of the lots are as small as ours, and most of the homes 80 or so years old. Just South of us is another district of bigger and pricier old homes occupied by people that probably have a higher average level of education than the average level in my district, also they have properties generally twice or more as big as our lot. A few holdouts from lease-signing in our district began to attend meetings the other district was holding to discuss the leases and what to do about them. They too had been offered the $500 lease-signing bonuses. That district got its shit together and negotiated a lease price of $15,000 per acre for the rights to natural gas. The stragler homeowners in my district, of which we were, got the company, XTO, to offer us the same terms they offered the other district.
So today wife and I went down to the Fort Worth Gas/XTO and leased our mineral rights for natural gas for the next four years (interestly, we, or likely wife after I die, can sell the property and retain the mineral rights until the world ends). The bonus for our "ranch" was 3272 bonars. We didn't need those bonars, but it seems that once a company gets 67% of the land in certain sections under contract, they can begin drilling for gas. Those owners who did not lease their mineral rights will have the gas extracted from within/beneath their properties and will eventually receive some sort of a royalty check but will apparently never receive a bonus.
So my question is what should we do with this small windfall?
Wife wants to cover up our fomica countertops and put in some play-like granite countertops which are cheaper than real granite. She already has gotten a quote for the job--2,300 bonars--and for which the company will let you pay 50% two weeks before installation, then 25% in a month and the same in another month by credit card no less. We got such a "good" price on the deal because I said, if we did it, I would detach and reattach the plumbing to the sink vs. paying their plumber to come from Dallas to do it.
Wife got onto this idea for play-like granite because two close friends back in Nashville had recently had their kitchens done with the stuff.
Whew! What do you tell your wife whom you love dearly? First, I told her I loved her, which I do every day, then I told her that big screen TV's, home theaters, granite tops, designer wear and accessories, diamonds are forever, swimming pools, big fast cars with navigation systems, McMansions, iPods, and video consoles and games are things that Americian marketing-genius, some would call it: genius, has convinced the average dumb American that he or she should have to achieve what is insinuated as "The American Dream."
I told her that with our present wealth we could afford anything we needed, because we had not bought everything that comes down the pike that the advertisers would lead Americans to believe that one must have if one is worth a hoot. Surely she cannot tell her buddies that she has play-like granite countertops on which she can set hot things right off the stove without even stopping to worry about doing such. I told her we already have a lot of little doies on which to set hot things as we have always done. I think in a day or two she'll start speaking to me again.
When someone offers you 500 bonars for the the mineral rights to your land, my advice is don't take it. Unfortunately most of the people on my street about whom I know anything certainly could have used 3K--whether they would have used it wisely or not is another issue, but they all would have benefitted from not jumping on the 500 bonar bonus--which from what I know, all but three of the the 22 home on my street's block jumped on.
I told wife also that I think in two years granite counter tops will be cheaper and if I am wrong about that, then okay, the houses that have them now will be cheaper.
Also pretty interesting about the mineral rights process.
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