A representative of an energy company stopped by my property as well as my neighbors. He was offering $2400/acre as a signing bonus and 17% royalties. I told him when I signed the deed mineral rights were retained by the seller. This would be the case with most of my neighbors who purchased from the same original owner. He told me they beleived the seller had failed to "maintain" his rights and therefore rights defaulted to current land owners.

My dad and I bought property at the same time (about 16yrs ago) as me under the same condition from the same seller. I sold off one tract of land he sold off two. One of the property owners that bought a tract off of my dad about 5yrs ago claims he has paperwork verifying his mineral rights. The energy company seeking leasing has partnered with a local law firm. I am not familiar with this area of Ohio law. They asked us to sign off for them to legally secure our mineral rights. They want 8% of the singing bonus paid by the energy company end of story. Contigent on me receiving signing payment. Not unreasonable.

Some of my more remote neighbors signed on for far less earlier on. They have since been compensated as promised. The legal beagles are looking into this. I am interested if anyone else in eastern ohio has deal with this.

Don't sign anything without knowing how your land will be handled as far as unitizing goes. That is where you can get screwed. They can hold your lease forever because production is active on a well 7 miles off your property.

I thought mineral rights defaulted to the current landowner after 10 years could be wrong though. Never dealt with it. Got a buddy who is a landman. PM me and ill get you his contact info he will be a much bigger help than me or most of the chuckleheads on here.

You must live in Guernsey or Harrison County?

The rights do not default to the property owners in Ohio. If you own the surface rights of the property and there has not been any activity involving the minerals and there has not been any papers filed in the courthouse to preserve the rights in the last 20 years, they are considered abandoned. The surface owner can then file the papers to gain control of the minerals through the court and will need to publish their intent in the legal section of the local newspaper, this lets the original owners know their rights are going to be lost. You will need an attorney to get this done correctly.

$2400.00 per acre is a little low for a signing bonus. The average is around $3500.00 to $3900.00 and 17.5% royalties.