Unearthing assets: Investigators locate mineral rights owners

Michael Zwick, Assets International, Southfield, Mich.

Exploration. Digging. Unearthing. Discovery. While these are all methods common to professionals in the oil and gas industry, they are also used by asset recovery firms to locate missing heirs and beneficiaries and to find mineral rights owners who may be unaware they are being sought.

One such firm is Michigan-based Assets International, a private investigation agency that specializes in locating such individuals. The company is often contacted by landmen and other professionals looking to drill for petroleum or excavate for minerals and natural resources anywhere in the world. It is incumbent on them to locate the mineral rights owners, including those who may not be easy to find.

Operators looking to disburse royalty payments from their escrow accounts to missing mineral rights owners often contact asset recovery firms to help them fulfill their fiduciary responsibilities.

The work is equal parts legal expertise and private investigation. For the past decade, Assets International has focused on locating missing heirs and beneficiaries in probate proceedings. To date, the company has successfully reunited heirs, most of whom did not know they were due any money, with more than $30 million.

Founded in 2001, Assets International originally concentrated on cases involving probate and lost heirs, bankruptcy, class action lawsuits, etc. The company recently expanded its services to include locating the owners of mineral rights, including oil, gas, and other minerals. The company's professional staff travels worldwide to conduct the research and investigation needed to identify heirs and rightful mineral rights owners.

Assets International assists landmen and other professionals working for operators, as well as court-appointed trustees, who are looking for the current owners of mineral rights. The service is offered in both the pre-drilling stages, when an operator is trying to secure as many leases as possible, and after the fact when an operator or trustee is holding bonus and royalty payments for missing owners.

The obvious beneficiaries are the unknowing mineral rights owners, but the operators and their representatives benefit as well. For example, hiring an asset recovery firm to locate missing rights owners can help an operator satisfy a court or agency that there was sufficient due diligence. In addition, some jurisdictions require operators to secure contracts for a certain percentage of the affected land before allowing drilling.

Asset recovery firms also can help locate more owners and bring them to the negotiating table. In addition, the service provided may alleviate an operator's handling of escrow funds and reporting them to the relevant government regulatory agencies.

Locating missing mineral rights owners requires a great amount of knowledge and experience. While the information is out there, it's a matter of knowing where to look. Typically, the search begins with the register of deeds in the county where the property containing the mineral is located. Once the last known owner is determined, the search gets more involved to locate the current beneficiaries of those rights, utilizing both public and proprietary databases, in addition to other records.

Assets International employs multilingual researchers with experience in genealogical research and with other types of investigative experience, including legal training. This enables the firm to utilize documents written in many foreign languages to locate missing mineral rights owners. The company also has developed a network of reliable colleagues around the globe to assist in tracking down missing relatives and others.

Because many cases require the navigation of the legal system to find missing mineral rights owners, it's important that the asset recovery firm's team includes several attorneys and legal assistants on staff specifically trained to find them.

In general, there are two ways in which an assets recovery firm works with its client:

Option A – Contract with missing mineral rights owners

The company will contract directly with the missing mineral rights owners that it locates. There is no fee if the firm is unsuccessful in finding the missing owners.

Option B – Contract with the operator

The operator retains the firm to perform due diligence on a pay-per-hour basis. In this case the company provides detailed reports that will be admissible in a court of law or before government agencies.

Companies requiring the services of an assets recovery firm should do their own due diligence and hire a firm with experience and a demonstrable track record of success.

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