Contact Your Legislator
There is a proposed bill that has been filed for consideration in the Mississippi Senate dealing with "Severed Mineral Interests."
As I understand it, if the law passes, people will have until December 15 to lay claim to any mineral interests they may have. If this isn't done, then the mineral interests will be forfeited to the State of Mississippi.
The proposed law seems poorly thought out and grossly unfair to me. First, 12/15/2015 is too short of a time frame for people to research their ownerships in minerals. Second, forfeiture, if any, should go to the owners of the property and not to the State of Mississippi, in my opinion.
I actually agree with the need to do something about all of the severed minerals on our books...determining who has the rights to lease minerals in Mississippi is a nightmare for oil companies and then determining who has the right to receive royalty payments is another chapter in the book of horrors for these oil companies.
As time goes along this situation will only get worse. But this bill is simply not thought out very well.
Here is a link to this proposed bill:
http://billstatus.ls.state.ms.us/documents/2015/html/SB/2300-2399/SB2316IN.htm
I recommend you call your legislator and suggest the proposed law be replaced with a better one.
Here is a link to a summary of the "Model Dormant Mineral Act." I suggest you recommend this bill as a replacement to your senator and representative.
http://www.uniformlaws.org/ActSummary.aspx?title=Dormant%20Mineral%20Interests%20Act,%20Model
This law gives people at least 20 years and up to 40 years to lay claim to "dormant" mineral ownership. Perhaps the years could be cut to 10 and 20 for the minimum/final periods, but 9 months, as proposed in the current bill, is ludicrous.
Here is a link to the details on the model act as written in 1986 and as adopted already either exactly or used as the basis for adopted laws in several states, already:
http://www.uniformlaws.org/shared/docs/dormant%20mineral%20interests/udmia_final_86.pdf
I would like to see dormant royalties specified in the proposed act, but I believe "dormant minerals" likely includes royalties, already.
Understand, that if people know they own severed minerals/royalties, this proposed bill won't take it away from you. All you have to do is record your interests and you have many years to do so.
If you agree with the idea, then I suggest you contact your legislator. Here is a link to contact your Mississippi legislators
http://www.legislature.ms.gov/Pages/Contact.aspx
