DETERMINATION OF HEIRSHIP PROCEEDINGS

• Jurisdiction: United States

Oil & Gas Mineral Title Examination (Sep 2019)
CHAPTER 6B
DETERMINATION OF HEIRSHIP PROCEEDINGS
C. Elaine Carleton
Carleton Gotlin Law PC
Denver, CO

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C. Elaine Carleton is a Denver-based attorney who is licensed in Colorado and Texas. Her practice primarily focuses on upstream oil and gas and energy development. She has extensive business and legal experience in all aspects of the oil and gas industry, including acquisition/divestment, exploration and development. Elaine currently serves as a co-managing partner of Carleton Gotlin Law PC, and she specializes in advising and representing clients on challenging title curative matters, due diligence projects, complex multi-formation title opinions, issues covering large spacing and pooled units and in Determination of Heirship actions. Elaine graduated with a BBA from the University of Texas with an emphasis in Petroleum Land Management and prior to returning to school for her law degree, worked as a landman, crude oil marketer, DOI analyst and project coordinator for development of a gas/oil marketing system. Elaine has authored and presented numerous papers covering complex title issues, pooling and spacing, determinations of heirship actions, quiet title actions, surface issues, and conveyance of minerals for the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation, Colorado Bar Association's Natural Resources section and Trust and Estate sections, the Denver Association of Petroleum Landmen, National Association of Division Order Analysts, and other local Denver associations. Elaine is a member of the Colorado, Texas, Denver and Colorado Women's Bar Associations and is active in the Natural Resources sections and the Trusts and Estates sections of the State Bars. She is also a member of the Denver Association of Oil and Gas Title Lawyers, as well as being a past president and treasurer. Elaine is a member of the American Association of Professional Landmen and is a Certified Professional Landman, having been certified in 1987 and keeping her certification current. Elaine previously served as president of the Women's Estate Planning Council. In 2016, Elaine was nominated by the Denver Business Journal as a top Energy Attorney in Colorado.

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Determination of Heirship Proceeding

C.R.S § 15-12-1301 et seq.

Proceeding is Well Suited for Oil, Gas and Mineral Interests

A Determination of Heirship Proceeding is an alternate proceeding for determining heirs and devisees under the Colorado Probate Code regardless if a prior probate proceeding was opened but is now closed. For oil and gas lessees and operators, this is a useful tool for vesting record mineral title in heirs/devisees. Historically, oil, gas and mineral interests were overlooked or unknown in a decedent's estate, often resulting in a failure to convey these interests from the decedent's estate. Frequently this oversight and lack of mineral conveyance was repeated in subsequent generations.

This proceeding is available for lessees and operators to cure title without a third party because the lessee of these heirs/devisees can actually petition the court pursuant to these proceedings. Under these particular code provisions, any interested person may petition the court for a decree that determines the testate or intestate succession of all, or a portion, of a decedent's property, so long as one year has passed since the decedent's date of death and administration of the decedent's estate has not previously been granted in any jurisdiction or, if administration has been granted in any jurisdiction, that the estate has been settled without a determination of the descent or succession of the decedent's property.¹ An interested person means "an owner by descent or succession, an...