Howdy, I'm a financial advisor trying to help a client sell some land that reportedly is an environmental disaster.

She's older and received the land from her husband's family and had apparently never been out there. It's about 20 acres in Franklin County if that matters.

We have engaged a realtor to help us list this parcel plus a few others and he reports there is a significant amount of standing oil, to the point that he thinks it is unsalable. She has been receiving royalties from this, so we are trying to track down that contract as a first step to try and determine what happened.

Question is whether we should possibly report this to the Texas RRC now, or pay for an independent audit first. We are likely going to advise her to hire an O&G attorney used by another client as this is not our specialty.

Thanks an advance to anyone who has experience with this.

Document eveything thoroughly.

Hire attorney.

Contact RRC.

Profit.

First step is hire attorney YESTERDAY. If TCEQ gets wind of it before she's ready, her life could get really miserable. Now that a realtor knows about it, it will get out there. They usually have pretty big mouths.

She could possibly have to pay the remediation herself if the oil company is gone or bust.

As for you, you might want to talk to your attorney about your role in advising her so that you don't get drug into it.

TCEQ has no jurisdiction and wouldn't touch this with a ten foot pole. RRC is the appropriate agency.

need to find out who the operator is ASAP.

Furlock Bones said:

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need to find out who the operator is ASAP.

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Have identified the operator and sent the contract to an attorney for review. This appears to be a pretty small operator ($500k in annual estimated revenues from only a handful of oil wells + some natural gas). Thank you all for the advice...glad I am not in this line of work.

They gonna have a lot less profits this year after cleaning up the mess...